Genesis and Geology

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Frontispiece.
GENESIS AND GEOLOGY
THE HARMONY OF THE SCRIPTURAL

AND GEOLOGICAL RECORDS
BY
REV. N. COLLIN HUGHES, D.D.
3>^C
CHOCOWINITY, N.C.
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR

1887
DISCIPLIANA LIBRARY
ATLANTIC CHRISTIAN
COLLEGE
WILSON, N. C.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by
REV. N". COLLIN HUGHES,

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
All Rights Reserved.
CusHiNG & Co., Printers, Boston.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
PAGE
Introductory 1
Oppositions of science ; in Scripture ; the last century

at the present time ; especially as to teachings of geology.
Scripture and geology in entire harmony. Positive proofs
of the Christian Religion prophecy miracles internal
;
; ;
evidences. Method of harmonizing ajDparent discrepan-

cies. Geology as a science in its infancy. Yet much in-
formation acquired. Antiquity of the earth established
a vast graveyard convulsions disentombing the creatures
;
of the past. But not the antiquity of the human race.

The days of Scripture ; not man's days, but God's days.
The word " day," both in ordinary language and Scrip-
ture, a period of indefinite length. The true question to
be considered. Confessed ignorance of geology as to the
work of the first two days. The earth a cooling ball of
fire. Importance of this fact. The earth an oblate sphe-
roid. Hot springs, earthquakes, volcanoes. Oscillations
of the earth's surface. Gradual increase of heat with
depth below the surface. Evidences of cooling gradual ;
removal of surface from internal fires tropical produc- ;
tions in Arctic regions oldest rocks, igneous or metamor-

;
phic. Analogical argument from state of heavenly bodies.

Sun a mass of fire; not a solid globe. Amount of heat
radiated; specific gravity. Testimony of spectroscope. A
cooling body ;
pores ; spots. Similar testimony from the
planets.
iv CONTENTS.
LECTURE 11.
PAGE
First Day Gen. I. 1-5 25
Matters discussed in previous Lecture. Kestatement
of the question. Brevity of Mosaic account of the crea-
tion. Work of creation not continuous
separate days or ;
periods. Correspondence of the six days of Scripture to

the four geological eras. First verse of Gen. i. probably a
preface to the chapter ; reasons for so considering it. In-
ference as to the time of the creation of the heavenly
bodies. Meaning of the word created." Second verse;
''
five circumstances noted: 1. Without form. 2. Void. 8.
Immersion of the earth in water. Consistency with the

idea that the earth was once a ball of fire. Sun's atmos-
phere. Waters of the Gradual con-
earth, once vapors.
densation. Testimony of geology as to the immersion of
the earth in Archaean times. 4. Darkness upon the deep.
5. Moving of the Spirit of God upon the waters. Brooded;
Gesenius, Patrick, Milton. Revised translation. Begin-
ning of Testimony of geology as to Archaean life.
life.
Third verse. Incoming of light. Its source, the sun.
Gradual penetration of the vaporous envelope. Fourth

verse. Excellence of light. Rotation of the earth. Fifth
verse. Day and night. The evening and the morning,
and the precedence of the former. The cause, the grad-
ual condensation of vapor, and consequent increase of
light through the Scriptural days. Exact order of the
events set forth in thework of the first day and its har- ;
mony with natural science, and geology in particular.
LECTURE IIL Part L

Second Day Gen. L 6-8 53
Review of the Second Lecture. Second day. Con-

fessedand necessary ignorance of geology as to this day's
work. The making of the firmament, and its object. The

firmament is the atmosphere. Impossibility of its exist-
ence before the first day. Gradual subsidence of heavier
CONTENTS. V
PAGE
atmospheric air and carbonic acid gas. This atmosphere
between the waters above and beneath. Necessity for the
slow formation of the atmosphere. Proofs of the exist-
ence and long continuance of an original vaporous envel-
ope. The waters of earth necessarily vapor at first, and
slow in condensation. The vaporous mask of the planets
especially Mercury, Venus, and Mars. A key to interpre-
tation.
Part II.
Third Day Gen. I. 9-13 67

Preliminary remarks. According to Scripture, two
great works formation of land, and of vegetation. Psalm
:
civ. Lands now lifted from the waters. Their perma-

nence. Testimony of geology. Continents, then formed.
Their outline, then permanently established. Origin of
vegetation. Three kinds grass, or tender herbage
:
herbs ; fruit trees. Peculiarities of the seed of the herb

and the fruit tree. Cryptogams and Phenogams. Order
of the appearance of grass, herb, and fruit tree. Positive
testimony of geology as to the fact of the creation of three
classes of vegetation at this time ; also as to the peculiari-
ties of the seed, and as to the order of creation of fruit
trees. Defective testimony as to the precedence of tender
herbage, and the reasons for it. Harmony of the records
as to the day's work.
LECTURE IV. Part L

Fourth Day Gen. I. 14-19 83
Preliminary remarks. God's threefold purpose. Puz-
zle of theologians. Meaning of the word " made," in conver-
sation, and in Scripture. Dressed. Prepared, Why the
heavenly bodies were not prepared until the fourth day,
and how they then loere prepared ; to divide the day from
the night ; to be signs of the seasons, etc. ; to give light.
Order of the occurrence of events: sun: moon; stars:
vi CONTENTS.
PAGE
days ;
years. Meaning of the word " set." Connection of
coal formation with the " preparation " of the heavenly
bodies. Origin of coal. Prevalence of mists. Extraction
of vapor from the atmosphere by the
and bark of leaves
plants. Unexpected harmony of Scriptural and geologi-
cal records of this day.
Part II.
Fifth Day Gen. I. 20-23 97
Preliminary remarks. Scriptural record. Creatures

brought forth by the waters. Two classes : the inhabi-
tants of the waters ; the inhabitants of the air. Difficul-
ties of translation, especially as to the work of this day.
Meaning of "moving"; marginal translation, "creeping."
Proofs of the correctness of the marginal translation.
Meaning of "nephesh"; Gesenius, Young. Whales, not
reptiles. Gesenius's definition of " Tanneenim." Dragon.
Moses' rod. Scriptural translation and determination of
characteristics. Serpent and crocodilian. Abundance of
reptiles. Their vast size. Precedence to fowls. Concur-
rent testimony of geology in every particular. Fowls.
Creation of fowls, and definition of the term. Flying in
the firmament. Abundance. Out of the waters. Con-
current and exact testimony of geology.
LECTURE v. Part I.
Sixth Day Gen. I. 24-27 113
Creatures brought forth by the land. Two divisions.

Lower orders of animals. Man. Lowêr orders in three
classes : cattle ; creeping things ; beasts. How distin-
guished. Large quadrupeds and domestic animals gener-
ally. Snakes. Wild animals. Inversion of order in the
Scriptural account implying cotemporary creation of the
three classes and in the beginning of the day. Wonder-
ful and precise conformity of geological statements. Man
CONTENTS. vii
PAGE
created on this day. Long after the other animals. Man
the grand ^na/e of the creation. Concurrent testimony of
geology.
Part II.
The Antiquity of Man 126
Question. Does geology prove that man has been

longer on the earth than the 6,000 or 7,000 years asserted by
the Holy Scriptures ? Different estimates of chronologists.
Assertions of extreme antiquity by some geologists. An-
tipathy to revelation. Uncertainty of their data. Skel-
eton in the delta of the Mississippi. Stone (new and
old), bronze, and iron ages. Works of man in superfi-
cial placer deposits of California. Chipped flint instru-
ments of the river Somme. Finds in North Carolina;
iron potware; vial: anthracite coal; stone inkstand;
petrified ham gun-barrel and stock.
;
Coin of Edward I.
Findings in caves. Caves as residences and burial places.
Engis skull. Inconsistency of Le Conte. General sum-
mary. The great cause of the prevalence of infidelity.
GENESIS AND GEOLOGY.
To face p. 1.
Lecture T.
INTRODUCTORY.
A MONG the many devices with which, in all ages,

-^--^ the archenemy has confronted the church of God,
have been the oppositions of science, falsely so-called.
It was so in the days of the Apostles insomuch that
;
St. Paul had occasion to warn Timothy against them.

1 Tim. vi. 20.
In the last century a crusade was proclaimed against
the church and the faith of Christ, led on by Voltaire,
Rousseau, Hume, T. Paine, and others. Their efforts
culminated in the French Revolution, in the over-
throw of every phase of Christianity in that unhappy
country for a season, and in the installation in its stead
of the goddess of reason. But God, who planted the
church, has never failed to watch over it; and its
vast extent and power at this day are a verification of
the words of the Lord Jesus, that the "gates of hell
shall not prevail against it."
In our own time, and especially for some twenty
years past, the oppositions of science have been re-
newedy with an array of names of eminent scientists
and others, who have succeeded in leavening the press
of the age, in infusing their dangerous sentiments into
2 GENESIS AND GEOLOGY.
many of our seminaries of learning, and in producing

among the masses of the people widespread doubts as
to the consistency between the teachings of the God of
the Bible and the God of Nature. In particular, it is
thought that in the field of geological research they
have been enabled to erect a fortress and to arm it
with artillery which will batter down the walls of the
city of God, and enable its enemies to sack it and to
raze it to the ground. It is confidently asserted that
Geology proves that the foundation of the whole Chris-
tian scheme, which is laid in the first chapter of the
book of Genesis, is altogether false. It is affirmed that
that chapter declares that the creation of the world
took place less than six thousand years ago, whereas
this globe is of immense and almost unimaginable an-
tiquity that it represents, as being accomplished in a
;
week, a work which occupied a long series of ages.

In reply to this, it will be my endeavor (and I trust
I shall succeed in it) to show you very clearly that in
the teachings of Scripture in regard to the creation
there no conflict whatever with those of Geology or
is
natural science. But that, on the contrary, the harmony

is so wonderful that it could not be the result of acci-
dent, and can only be accounted for on the ground that

Moses was inspired, as he professed to be, by the Author
of Creation to write that account of it which he has
recorded in the first chapter of the Pentateuch.
But before proceeding to the consideration of this
question, I would call your attention to the fact that

the positive proofs of the truth of the Christian reli-
gion are innumerable and incontrovertible. The Bible

contains thousands of prophecies concerning the Christ
INTRODUCTORY. 3
that was to come, concerning races of people, nations,

cities, and great successions of historic events, some of
them reaching to our own time. These prophecies

have the nature of standing miracles, and are an attes-
tation from God to the Divine origin of the Scriptures,
than which it is hardly possible for him to give a greater.
The Bible also contains accounts of supernatural works
wrought by our Lord and his Apostles, of the reality
of which evidence exists scarcely less forcible and con-
clusive than if we ourselves had witnessed them with
our own eyes, and which, consequently, are God's seal
set upon Jesus, witnessing that he was indeed the Son
of God. Moreover, the Bible itself contains internal
evidences of its Divine origin, similar in force and
strength to those marks of contrivance and design,
w^hich in all the natural works of God proclaim so
loudly and so clearly that the hand that made them
is Divine.
To those who are thoroughly acquainted with these
foundations solid as the everlasting and these hills
walls and bulwarks more impregnable than the fort-

ress of Gibraltar, there will be no more dread that
the teachings of Geology, or of any other branch of
natural science, will disprove the Divine inspiration of
the Scriptures, than there is that the billows of the ocean
will overflow and whelm the solid land. Being assured
that the Holy Scriptures and Nature are both the books
of the God of truth, written by the same unerring
hand, they can rest in a firm and unshaken assurance
that their teachings must coincide. There may be,
and doubtless ivill be, apparent contradictions, such as
always" exist in the words and in the wiitings of every
;
man, however intelligent and however sincere. But

there are two ways of harmonizing them, one or other
of which will always prove effective. First, we may
be mistaken as to the real meaning of the Scriptures
or, secondly, we may be in error in regard to the real
teachings of Science. In the one case, a better under-
standing of the Scripture will remove the difficulty;
in the other, further and more correct knowledge of
natural Science will put to flight all doubt.
With respect to Geology, we must not forget that, as
a science, it is yet in its most dili-
infancy ; and this its
gent students do not hesitate to affirm.
It is not to be questioned, however, that the labors
of geologists have been rewarded with a vast amount
of most curious, interesting, and valuable information,
accumulated within an incredibly short period of time.
Among other things, geologists have proved to a dem-
onstration the immense antiquity of this globe. I have
scarce a doubt that it has been in existence for millions
of years, and possibly for scores of millions of years.
The upper surface of this globe, for some fifteen to
twenty miles in depth, is one vast graveyard. It has
entombed within it the remains of probably all, or nearly
all, the species of plants and animals that have ever
existed upon it, from its formation until the present
hour. There is the clearest and most unquestionable
evidence that the solid structure of the globe has under-
gone a great variety of very wonderful changes and
transformations. That which is now the surface was
illmany places once buried miles under ground. What
are now mountain tops were in some cases, beyond all
peradventure, once buried beneath the waters of the
INTRODUCTORY. 5
ocean. At times there have been gradual oscillations

of the earth's surface ; sometimes rising, at others, sink-
ing. Again, there have been immense convulsions,
compared with which the earthquake of the past year,
which so changed the face of nature in the island of
Java and its vicinity, is no more than as the popping of
a fire-cracker would be to the explosion of a cannon.
These great changes, however, are the foundation of
geological knowledge, and enable its devotees to read
the records of creation from the first dawn in gs of ani-
mal and vegetable life in the most remote antiquity,
and to trace the series of developments which have
taken place even to the present time. To these convul-
sions we are indelTted for a knowledge of animals and
plants that ran their race in the far distant ages of the
past. During their lifetime they were, of course, on the
surface of the globe, either on dry land, or buried a
short distance beneath the waters. But as ages rolled
by, a gradual subsidence of the earth would sink them
into the depths, where they would be covered by mud
and sand from the washings of waves, and the settlings
from the waters, and also by the shells of innumerable
marine animals. These, by and by, would harden into
rocks, that would effectually entomb them, and for
all time to come preserve their remains. And as
myriads of years passed by, rocks miles in thickness
would thus be formed, entombing successive races of
plants and animals, until by and by some great con-
vulsion would occur, upheaving the horizontal rocks,
tearing them to pieces, lifting them from their beds
miles below the surface, perhaps to the summits of
great mountain ridges, twisting and turning them,
sometimes folding them, and occasionally melting them

through the action of subterranean fires; and yet on
the whole preserving to a very considerable extent the
order of the succession of the various layers and species
of rock. Nearly all these rocks thus raised from the
depths, will be found to contain fossil remains of the
plants and animals of cotemporary ages. Thus the dead
are in a measure disentombed, brought to the surface
of the earth, and subjected to the inspection and
study of man. By noticing the species which each
class of rocks contains, and the order in which the
rocks lie upon each other, a chapter of the world's his-
tory is read. By extending these observations over far
distant regions, multiplying them indefinitely, and com-
paring the results of investigation in different places,
they are enabled to arrange the chapters together in
their order, and thus to make out a book of the world's
history in the order that God originally wrote it, from
the twilight of Archaean time down to the present hour.
The great antiquity of this globe, therefore, is fully made
out ; but, he it remembered^ not the antiquity of the
HUMAN EACE.
Geology testifies to man's recent origin. But of that
we hope to speak in a future lecture. It is affirmed,
however, by some, that the proof of the antiquity of the
earth is of itself sufficient to disprove the Divine inspi-
ration of the Scriptures : inasmuch
as it is contended
that the Scriptures teach that the world was made in
six natural days, on the last of which man was created;
that man, according to Scriptural chronology, has only
been about six thousand years upon the earth that ;
the earth is only five days older than man and that ;
mTRODUCTORY. 7
therefore, according to Scripture, the earth is not an-

cient, but of recent origin. Here appears to be a for-
midable How is
difficulty. it to be met ? I confess to
a change in my own opinion, as to the way in which
this difficulty is to be set aside. At an early period of
my life, when much less was known of Geology than is
now known, of the two solutions which were given of
it, I adopted one which I am now fully convinced is
erroneous. It was this: that the record contained in
Genesis i. was not a history of the original creation of the
earth and its living creatures. But that while the first
verse, "In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth," contains a statement of the original creation
of the Universe by the Almighty, all the rest of the
chapter was simply an account of the manner in which,
after nriany previous creations of plants and animals, the
world was refitted, and the present races of plants and
animals were formed in six natural days. The Scrip-
tures admit of such an interpretation, and it does away
with all difficulty based upon an admission of the great
antiquity of the globe.
But afterward I was so struck with the singular cor-
respondence between the order in which Geology rep-
resents the creation to have taken place and that which
the Scriptures declare, that I was led to further investi-
gations, which fully satisfied my mind that the account
given us of the creation in Genesis i. is an account of the
world's history from the beginning of life upon it to the
present era. But that the six days of creation are not
six of man's days,but six of Grod's days and that the ;
duration of those days bears a likeness to the eternity

of G-od''s existence somewhat proportioned to what six
natural days bear to the three score years and ten of

man^s eartJdy life. In other words, that those six days
are six geological periods of immense duration ; and
that they are measured by hundreds of thousands, and
probably by millions of years.
But the question arises. What right have we to say
that these days mean, not periods of twenty-four hours,
but periods of vast duration ? Does not the ordinary
use of the term ''day," in our common conversation,
and especially does not the Scriptural use of it, confine
it definitely to twenty-four hours, and forbid the idea
that it can be used in reference to a period of indefinite
length ? We answer both of these questions most decid-
edly in the negative ! As to our use of the word in
our common conversation. What is more frequent than
to say, " I hope that such and such an evil will not occur
in my day " ? But " day," as thus used, does not mean
a period of twenty-four hours. It means the entire
period of my life ; although that life should be protrac-
ted to a hundred years. And we turn to
if the Scrip-
tures, and consider in what sense the word " day " is
there used, we shall find the result of our investigation

equally satisfactory. The word " day," in the singular
number (not to speak of its plural, days'), occurs some

fifteen hundred times in Holy Scripture. And in a
multitude, yes, perhaps in hundreds, of instances, it does
not mean a period of twenty-four hours. Sometimes a
day means a year. This is the case in prophetic lan-
guage, especially in the books of Daniel, and of the
Revelation. Again, a " day " means the period of the
existence of any object. Thus David, in Psalm Ixxiii. 14,
says, "All the day long have I been plagued, and

INTRODUCTORY. 9
chastened every morning." His meaning evidently is
that all his life long he had been plagued ; and that he
had been chastened every morning of that life. In
John viii. our Lord said to the Jews, '' Your father,
Abraham, rejoiced to see my day and he saw it, and was ;
glad." Here the word, " day," means the time of our
Lord's earthly life ; or else the time of his manifestation
to the world. ix. 4, our blessed Lord says, "I
Li John
must work the works of him that sent me, while it is
day ; the night corneth when no man can work." Here,
again, our Lord clearly means by day^ his lifetime ; and
the whole verse declares the necessity he was under to
be diligent in duty while because " the night
life lasted,
Cometh," that is, because his death drew nigh in which

it was impossible
for his life-work to be accomplished.
In like manner, our Lord uses the word, " day," in con-
nection with the city of Jerusalem, to signify, perhaps,
the hundreds of years of its existence, saying, "If thou
hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day the
things which belong unto thy peace " Or, he may !
have referred to the day of her visitation by himself;

but in either case, it means, not a day of twenty-four
hours, but a protracted period of time.
Many more similar expressions might be quoted.
But we also find the word, " day," used to denote a
period of protracted but of indefinite duration. Thus,
in Joel ii. 1, 2, God threatens the Israelites with a griev-
ous plague of locusts, and uses this language " Let ;
all the inhabitants of the land tremble ; for the day of

the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand, A day of dark-
ness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick
darkness." Here the word, " day," is used three times,
;
and in every instance it means the period during which

the plague of tlie locusts lasted, whatever the length of
that period may have been. In Zechariah iv. we read
a reference to the laying of the foundation of the second
temple by Jerubabel, the civil ruler of the Jews, who,
few in number and greatly impoverished, had recently
returned from their captivity in Babylon. Speaking of
their destitute condition and encouraging them under
it, God says ''
Who hath despised the day of small
:
things ? " Here " the day of small things " unques-
tionably means the period during which their poverty
and feebleness should continue. In like manner we
find repeated references in Scripture to the Day of
Judgment. But who imagines that transaction in which
all the deeds of all the human family are to be reviewed
and passed upon will take place within the limits of
twenty-four hours? it will be remembered
Besides,
that the earth, whose revolution marks the period of
twenty-four hours, will then have been destroyed and
will have passed away. These illustrations are a few
out of a vast number which might be adduced to show
you that the term " day," very commonly in Scripture,
does not mean one of our week days, but means a period
of time of indefinite length. And therefore it is not
necessar}^ to suppose that the six days during which
God was fashioning this world and peopling it with its
inhabitants, referred to six periods of twenty-four hours.

But as they were days during which God was working,
it is but reasonable to suppose that they were periods
own immeasurable existence
of time proportioned to his
days such as he might be expected to employ who has
no need of haste to accomplish his work; and who
INTRODUCTORY. 11
in the development of minute and simple an object

so
as a California pine-tree occupies thousands of our
natural years. And having wrought six of his days
and then ceased from the work of creation, it is very
natural that he should ordain that we should commem-
orate this work by working six of our days, and resting
on the seventh. It is true that God tells us that his
six days had each their "evening and morning" as our
days have but I hope to recur to this matter hereafter,
;
and to show you that his days did indeed each have
their evening and morning, and yet an evening and
morning of much longer duration than those of our
natural days.
Having thus established the fact that the word, " day,"
both in our common cojiversation., and in frequent Scrip-
tural usage, means a period of indefinite length, it may
mean Those days may have been periods
so in Genesis i.
of any imaginable length. And hence the antiquity of

this globe is in nowise inconsistent with the teachings of
Scripture. But the plain question for us to consider
is Does the account which is given by Moses in Genesis
:
i. of the primeval condition of the world, and of the suc-
cessive steps b}^ which it was fitted up and peopled with

its various inhabitants, correspond with the clear and
unmistakable teachings of natural science, and especially

of Geology, in regard to its primitive condition, and the
various changes which took place in it, until the time
man was formed and dominion was given him "over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and
over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth"?
But here it must be observed that when we come to
consider the primitive condition of this globe, we find

that Geology is at fault ; for it does not profess to know
but very little of v/hatwas done during the period
which corresponds two days of the Book of
to the first
Genesis. It is almost entirely occupied with the work
of the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth days.

Geology examines a portion of the earth's surface
about fifteen to twenty miles in thickness, because
rocks have been thrown up from about that depth to
our inspection but it can only speculate as to what lies
;
beneath that depth, and as to what took place before

those fifteen to twenty miles of rock were formed. But
from what geologists know of the earth's surface con-
dition, and from what Astronomy reveals in regard to
the condition of the heavenly bodies, especially those of
the solar system, they obtain very valuable data upon
whicli to base their opinions^ and they have almost unan-
imousl}^ come to the following conclusions : First, that
a few miles beneath the depths from which the lowest
surface rocks have been thrown up there is a great mass
of fire. In other words, they believe this whole earth
to be a ball of probably liquid flame, nearly eight thou-
sand miles in diameter, surrounded by a solid crust
from twenty-five to thirty miles in thickness. Secondly,
they believe that the earth is, through the ages as they
roll along, gradually cooling ; and that there was a time
when its whole mass was one vast fiery ocean. Of the
correctness of these conclusions I, for one, am thoroughly
persuaded ; but as of late some have undertaken to
question their correctness, before we can proceed to
investigate the teachings of the Book of Genesis as to
the work of the first two days of creation, it will be
INTRODUCTORY. 13
important to show you on what grounds we believe this

globe to have been at one time a ball of fire, and that
it is still so, except on this outer crust upon which we
live. And this is necessary to be done, because the ex-
planation which we propose to give of Genesis i. does
in part rest upon this as a basis. It is the key to
the proper understanding of the Mosaic account of
the creation. And therefore we must settle this question
before we proceed to compare the Scriptural and Geolo-
gical records. We say, therefore, that these views are
sustained, in the first place, from various considerations
connected with the condition of the globe itself. That
the earth is not a solid body throughout its whole in-
ternal mass is indicated by its sliape^ which is that of an
oblate spheroid ; that is to say, instead of being exactly
round, like a ball or an orange, it is flattened at the
poles and bulges out at the centre, insomuch that its
polar diameter about twentj^-six miles shorter than

is
its equatorial diameter. This is exactly what we would

expect its shape to be if there is liquid fire in its centre.
For revolving rapidly as it does about its axis, the cen-
trifugal forces would necessarily be greater about the
equator; and this, if the earth is yielding within, would
cause the equatorial regions of the earth to protrude at
the same time that the parts about the poles would con-
tract. That would be the natural result, any one
this
can satisfy himself practically by ranging hoops of tin
or iron together, somewhat in a globular form, with an
iron rod through the centre to correspond to the axis of
the earth. If, holding the rod in your hand, you whirl
the hoops around it as an axis, you will see at once a
protrusion of the centre and a flattening at the poles of
the miniature globe. It is true this oblate spheroidal

form might accidentally be the shape of the earth if it were
solid. But that it is not accidental may be inferred
from "the condition of the planet Jupiter. Jupiter's
diameter about eleven times as great as that of this
is
earth. But its day is only te7i hours long, consequently,

its huge bulk is ivhirled upon its axis With, far greater
rapidity than is the earth ; and upon the very natural

supposition that it, too, is not a solid body throughout,
the result which might be expected actually takes place.
For might be anticipated that the immense centri-
it
fugal force at its equatorial regions would cause a vastly
greater enlargement at the centre and flattening at its

poles than is found upon this earth. And such is in fact
the case for the difference between the length of its
;
polar and equatorial diameters is five thousand miles.

While the length of its diameter is only about eleven
times that of the earth, its flattening is nearly two hun-
dred times as great as that of the earth. That there
are vast internal fires beneath the earth's crust is also
manifest from the existence of hot springs, earthquakes,
and volcanoes over the whole surface of the globe.
Out of some of the hot springs the water issues scalding
hot. We find them in North Carolina. We find them
in Arkansas. We find them in every country and in
every climate, even in frozen Iceland and Siberia. And
they are not temporary, but continue for ages. The
Hot Wells of Bristol, in England, are known to have
been flowing constantly for a period of about two thou-
sand years. How much longer, no man can tell. What
but a vast internal fire beneath the earth's surface
over the whole globe can rationally account for the exist-
INTRODUCTORY. 15
ence of these springs? And what else can account

fur earthquakes such as sometimes occur ? What else
can have power sufficient so to shake this globe as to
roll a wave entirely across the Pacific Ocean from the
shores of Japan to San Francisco, in California? What
else could shake the earth to its centre as did the late
earthquake in Java and its vicinity, bursting the ribs
of the earth, burying high mountains in the huge
caverns opened, and lifting up mountains out of the
the ocean's bed? What else than a fiery globe beneath
the surface could have lifted up the Alleghany Moun-
tains and Appalachian chain, of which they are a por-
tion, raising some parts of them to the surface from a
depth of seven or eight miles? But in volcanoes we
actually see the fiery floods burst forth from their deep
caverns. And what but a globe of fire could have caused
such an eruption as took place in Iceland in 1783, when
a flood burst forth from the volcano Skaptor Jokul, and
continued to flow for two whole years ? It formed two
rivers of burning lava, one of which was forty miles
long and seven miles broad and the other, jifty miles
;
long and twelve miles broad. Thirdly, the oscillations

which are taking place all the world over in the height
of the land, with reference to the water, can only be
accounted for on the supposition that this earth is, be-
neath the surface, a ball of fire. Everywhere we find
the land in some places rising above the water; in
others, sinking into it. The eastern coast of North
Carolina is now manifestly sinking, and the waters of
the Atlantic are gaining upon the land. We have evi-
dences of this within three or four miles of my own
residence. And in the ages that are past, our whole
Atlantic border has been upon a perpetual see-saw, at

and again emerging from
times, sinking into the ocean,
it. But before the Appalachian
chain of mountains
was formed, the sinkings must have exceeded the risings
by several miles. Such a result coîld not have taken
place had not the earth been a yielding mass Avithin,
with such vast pent-up forces as only imprisoned fires
could have to rock a continent as in a cradle. A

fourth, and conclusive^ proof that this earth is but a crust
of rock surrounding a globe of flame is this: that where-
ever, in any part of the globe, ^îts have been sunk into
the earth," and wherever borings have been made, it has
been found that, after the first hundred feet, there is a
gradual increase of temperature of one degree Fahren-
heit for every fifty-five feet of descent. But after de-
scendhig about two thousand feet, the increase of tem-
perature becomes more rapid. But if about one degree
for every fifty-three feet be assumed as the average
increase, then in descending thirty miles the heat would
increase from about sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit to over
three thousand degrees
a heat which would melt gran-
ite,and perhaps every other rock in existence. So that
this amounts to almost a positive demonstration that
this entire globe, with the exception of a crust of some
twenty-five, or possibly thirty miles in thickness, is one
pent-up ocean of melted fiery rock and other earthy in-
gredients.
But if the earth is noiv in this condition, then it must
(at one time) have been a ball of flame, which has grad-
ually cooled until it has attained its present status. Of
this, there are numerous and satisfactory proofs. That
the earth is all the time cooling is evident. First, from
INTRODUCTORY. 17
the fact that geologists can trace tlie formation of fif-
teen or twenty miles of the eartli's crust, leaving pre-

viously a thickness of certainly not more than ten miles,
and perhaps not more than five. But this increase of
the thickness of the crust must naturally have gradually
removed the surface from the fires within and caused it
to become cooler.
But that in point of fact this cooling has certainly
taken place, is witnessed to by the productions of the
earth, both its plants and animals. In regions border-
ing upon the North Pole, where now there is scarce any
vegetation, there are to be found immense bodies of
fossil plants,which must have grown upon the spot^ with
a luxuriance only rivalled by the tropical regions of
the globe. And in the ice-bound regions of Northern
Siberia there have been worked for some time past huge
beds containing ivory, the remains of the mammoth, or
elephant of by-gone days. And yet the elephant now
inhabits, in his native state, only tropical or semi-tropi-
cal regions. And other geological observations prove
that as time rolled on, these tenants of tropical regions
gradually retreated from the poles, showing the gradual
cooling of the earth's surface.
But in the ages which were long before the existence
of tropical animals and plants at the poles, I mean
those ages in which the oldest rocks were formed of
which we have any knowledge,
we find that these rocks
were all of an igneous or metamorphic character. Igne-
ous rocks are such as granite, syenite, and porphyry,
and are called igneous rocks because they bear marks of
having originally been so acted upon by fire as to have
been in a melted state. Metamorphic rocks are such as
;
slate, Hint, and marble these at one time have been

:
under water, but have been crystallized by the combined

action of intense heat and pressure. But if all the old-
est rocks known were thus melted, then when they were
formed the earth must have been little more than a fiery
mass and as the same process of cooling was going on
:
before ihQiv formation that has taken place since, there-

fore as we go back, we necessarily keep approximating
to a period when all was flame.
But if we leave this glohe^ and consider the condition
of the heavenly bodies^ especially the members of the
solar system, we shall derive a very powerful analogical
argument to prove these same points, namely : that this
earth is a cooling globe that was once one great ocean
of fire. For as the sun and planets and their satellites
are all members of one family, it is only reasonable to
suppose that they pass through the same stages of
development. And an examination of their condition
clearly indicates that such is really the case. Take the
sun, for example. This is not improbably the great
parent orb of the family. Its bulk is about one and a
quarter millions of times as great as that of this earth
and if it is a cooling ball of fire, it confirms the idea
that this earth is so also. But as its mass is so many
times greater than that of the earth, it is not to be
expected that it has advanced in that direction more
than a very small fraction of the distance that this earth
has. That it is a ball of fire seems very evident. But
the opinion which has of late gained currency, namely,
that the sun is a solid., dark globe, surrounded by a
luminous atmosphere only, has ever appeared to me
most unreasonable. For, in the first place, how is it
INTRODUCTORY. 19
possible that a mere luminous atmosphere could, through

interminable ages, dispense in every direction the im-
mense amount of light and heat which are ever emanat-
ing from the sun's body? Think of the vast amount
of heat that the earth over all its surface receives from
the sun in the course of every twenty-four hours ; and
yet what it receives is only the one two billion three
hundred millionth part of what leaves the sun's body in
that time That the sun has a luminous atmosphere,
!
and that its breadth is about one-seventh of its diame-

ter, there is indeed reason to believe ; but how anything
but a great globe of fire could through all the ages con-
tinue to dispense in every direction such a vast amount
of heat as proceeds from the sun, is more than we can
imagine. The specific gravity of the sun is evidence
that it is a globe of fire. For it has only about the
fourth part of the specific gravity of the earth. But
this shows that while, as we learn from the spectroscope,
the materials which compose it are identical with those
of this globe, they must be in a very different condition.
On the supposition that they are in a state of fusion^
this difference in specific gravity is very readily ac-
counted for. For the effect of heat is to expand almost
all substances, and eventually to convert them into gases.
But on what other supposition this difference in specific

gravity is to be accounted for I know not. But
assurance as to the fiery condition of the sun's body is
made doubly sure, by the revelations of the spectro-
scope. This proves conclusively that according to well-
known spectroscopic laws, sunlight is produced by a
highly heated dense body, shining through a flame full
of volatilized substances; and consequently that the
;
sun is a sea of fire surrounded by an atmosphere of

gases and vapors produced by tlie intensity of its heat.
But if the sun he an ocean of
would be natural
fire, it
to suppose, as Ihave already intimated, that the effect

of throwing out such vast quantities of heat during so
many ages would be gradually to cool it and that as ;
we believe this earth and some other planets to have

become crusted over by solid rocks, so the sun might
be exjDccted to show indications of solids forming upon
itssurface. And this is exactly what we find does in
fact take place. The sun necessarily cools more slowly
on account of its vast bulk. Yet it cools. For we find
that the face of the sun is not all brightness ; but that
it is sprinkled over with dark dots, called pores "
; and
^^
also that spots of considerable size, and sometimes many

in number, are from time to time upon it. visible
It
is true that the existence of dark spotsupon the sun is
appealed to, in confirmation of their theory, by those
who believe the sun to be a dark, solid body surrounded
by a luminous atmosphere. Their idea is that by some
means or other (it, is difficult to imagine how) powerful
currents are excited in the sun which sweep away the
luminous atmosphere and allow the dark body of the
sun to become visible to us. But it must be remem-
bered that these spots are frequently of enormous size
in 1839 there was one seen which was about one hun-
dred and eighty-six thousand miles long, and on an
average, about one hundred and twenty-five thousand
miles wide. Its breadth, therefore, was more than fif-
teen times, and its length was more than twenty times,
the length of the earth's diameter. Consequently, it
must have been about four hundred times as large as

INTR OD UC TOR Y. 21
this earth would have appeared to have been, had

the earth been placed on the sun's disc alongside of it.
Can we conceive of the existence of a current that,

for one hour even, could have swept away the sun's at-
mosphere, piled it up around, stiffened it so as to pre-
vent its flowing back and through such a gigantic

chasm, have revealed the body of the sun ? But these
spots (not so large as this one, but of vast dimensions)
have lain upon the face of the sun for six months or
more at a time. How during all this time a current
could be kept up to reveal the same identical spot is a
mystery which passes all our powers of conception.
But on the supposition that the sun's spots are solid
masses gathering upon the surface of a fiery ocean, all
the numerous peculiarities connected with these spots
receive a ready solution.
In the first place, these spots are dark in appearance.
If they are incipient land, of course they will be so ; be-
cause not being so bright as the fused portions of the
sun,and lying upon its surface, they will intercept the
from ihdit portion of the sun's body on which they lie,
light
and must needs appear dark. But, secondly, it has
been observed that the centres of these spots are darker
than their edges. This arises from the fact that the great
mass is accumulated at the centre and is cooler than the
rest of the body. Immersed in the sun, it is all hot.
But the edges would be hotter than the centre and ;
although not fused^ might be still at a red, or even a

white, heat, and thus would not appear so dark as the
cooler central portion. Thirdly, these spots have some-
times luminous bridges between their several portions.
These are evidently breaks in the spots, separating its
* parts, and revealing the bright body of the sun between

them. Fourthly, the edge8 of the spots are brighter
than other portions of the sim^s
disc. And is not the
edge of our watery ocean (where the waves are ever
breaking upon the shore) brighter than any other por-
tion of it? And can we not well imagine that those
tremendous mountain waves of fire that roll over the
face of the sun should ever be dashing upon the edges
of the solid spots, and thus intensify the brilliancy of
the flame ? Fifthly, it has been noticed that the
presence of a spot on the sun's disc causes that portion
of the disc to be perceptibly cooler than the rest of the
sun's face. The spot is not so hot as the rest of the
sun, and must necessarily make it cooler.
it Sixthly,
the size of the spots is affected by the planets^ especially
by Venus on account of its nearness, and Jupiter on
account of its size. The spots are least when these
planets are on the same side of the sun with the earth,
and largest when they are both on the opposite side
of the sun from the earth. The evident reason of
this isbecause the planets make tides on the fiery
ocean of the sun, just as the moon makes tides on
the watery ocean of this earth. When the planets
are on the same side of the sun with the earth, they
so swell the solar tide as partly to bury beneath them
the outer and lower portions of the spots. Whereas
when they are on the opposite side of the sun, they
draw away the tide, and the spot appears larger.
Seventhly, the spots have two motions: one of
them, as all agree, is caused by the sun's rotation upon
its axis. But they have another and independent mo-
tion of their own. This is evidently because they are
INTRODUCTORY. 23
floating islandsand consequently not only rotate with

;
the sun upon its axis, but are driven to and fro by
the winds and currents of the fiery ocean.
Eighthly, these spots sometimes change their forms
rapidly, or are torn to pieces, and perhaps suddenly
and entirely disappear. All these circumstances are the
natural result of their being incipient land forming
upon a fiery ocean. For if the storms of our earthly
ocean can sport with the hugest leviathans that man
can construct, as though they were feathers, and whelm
them in their waves as though they were but foam, we
need not wonder that the fiery surges of the sun can,
when their wrath is excited, rend to pieces the islands
that float upon their bosom, and bury them in their
yawning chasms.
Lastly, these spots are frequently formed from the
pores of the sun as nuclei. Believing that these pores
are smaller bodies of land, it is very reasonable to sup-
pose that as particles of butter are gathered together in
churning, into a solid mass, so these pores, driven
together by the churning of the sun's waves, may be
made to aggregate, and through the power of attraction
be brought together into one vast body, so as to form a
spot on the sun's disc.
But if it be objected to all this, that the solid land
would be heavier than the fiery wave, and therefore
could not float upon it, we answer that when rocks are
first formed from lava, they are light and porous, and
that the lands of the sun having never been subjected

to pressure like the rocks beneath our feet, may very
well b6 lighter than the fused mass upon which they lie.
The fact, too, that a solid crust soon is formed and lies
upon a river of lava is a demonstration that the crust is
lighter than the liquid lava.

All these considerations are to my mind conclusive
evidence that the sun is a ball of fire. But in the
sun's fveênt condition we behold a picture of what
we have every reason to believe this earth once was.
And were it not that it would too greatly protract this
lecture, we might show from an examination of the con-
dition of the planets of the solar system what solid evi-
dence there is that they were all once balls offire, and
that the larger planets are little more than that now. If
not absolutely certain that the earth was once a ball of fire,
the evidence certainly falls little short of demonstration.
And this being incomparably the most reasonable sup-
position, we propose proceeding upon this basis to show
in future lectures how wonderfully Natural Science, and
Geology in particular, coincide in their teachings with
the book of Divine Revelation.
TABLE SHOWING THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THE GEO-
LOGICAL ERAS WITH THE DAYS OF SCRIPTURE.
DAYS ERAS AGES PERIODS EPOCHS
TERRACE
C Z
QUATERNARY CHIMPLAIN
6tli E O AGE OF GLACIAL
DAY N I MAMMALS PLIOCENE

TERTIARY MIOCENE
O C
EOCENE
M Z CRETACEOUS
5th E O REPTILIAN
JURASSIC
DAY S I AGE
O C TRIASSIC
4th P O CARBON IF
DAY EROUS AGE
A Z
DEVONIAN
L O AGE
3d
A I
DAY SILURIAN
E C AGE
A
2a
K
DAY C
H
m.
1st
DAY A
N
To face jj. '25.
Lectuee II,
FIRST DAY. GEN. I. 1-5.
"TN our former lecture we stated among other things,

-*- that the immense antiquity of this globe is estab-
lished, by geological research, beyond all doubt. This
fact, however, is not inconsistent with the Scriptural
statement that God made the world in six days. Be-
cause, aswe showed, the word "day" in Scripture does
not always mean a period of twenty-four hours but ;
frequently means a period of indefinite length. And as

the days of Genesis i. were G-ocTs work days, they may
very well mean six geological periods. And inasmuch
as the explanation we propose to give of the harmony
between the Mosaic and the geological accounts of the
creation is in part based upon the fact that this globe
was once a ball of fire, we also showed at some length
the numerous, clear, and (I may say) demonstrative
proofs that such was indeed the fact as it also is the :
generally accepted opinion among scientific men.

The question, therefore, for us to Consider is this Does :
the account given us in Genesis i. of the primitive con-

dition of the world accord with the geological and scien-
tific account of it ? And in the further account given
us of the successive steps of creation, does it harmonize
with the geological record? And here let me remind
you that the account given us work which

of this vast
occupied myriads of ages accomplishment is very
in its
brief, being written on a single page of the Sacred Vol-
ume. It is not to be expected, therefore, that we shall
find in Scripture a record of all the minute events of
geological history, or even of those of a subordinate char-
acter, although they may be absolutely events of great
importance. If we may suppose the events of the crea-
tion to have been represented in vision to the prophet,
and that his mental eye beheld them as in a panorama,
spreading and stretching out before him, all that he
could do would be to seize the most prominent features
of the landscape, to note the order of their occurrence,
and to commit an account of them to writing. This
then, and this is all we have a right to expect in a nar-
rative so brief as that of Genesis i. We have a right to
expect that we shall find there a statement of the m,ost
important events in the history of the creation, and
that in general they shall be related in the order in
which they occurred. And as we proceed in the exami-
nation of our subject, we shall find that this is exactly
what has been done.
In taking a general view of the Scriptural record, the
first matter which arrests our attention is the fact that
it is not one continuous and unbroken record. The
creative process is divided up into periods. We have
first an account of what God did on the first of his
days ; then, of the second day's work and so
; on, through
six successive days, or periods. It is worthy of note,
therefore, that, according to the Scriptural account, the
work of creation was broken up into well-defined periods^
and that these periods were six in number.
FIRST DAY. 27
What do geologists say on this subject? Do they

affirm that there were in the creation any number of
distinct and well-defined periods, separated from each
other by broad, distinctive features? They do affirm
this. And while they assert that geological history has
numberless chapters and sections^ they maintain that it
has several great volumes of history, separately hound^

as it were, and from each other. The
so distinguished
words of the evolutionist Le Conte on this subject are

very notable. Speaking in his work on Geology of the
Palceozoic Era, he says :
" This is a distinct system of
rocks, revealing a distinct time-world a distinct rock-

system, containing the record of a distinct ?z/e-system
a hound volume volume second of the Book of Time."
According to geologists, there are four of these great
eras. They are called : first, the Archsean, that is, the
beginning, or Eozoic Era, that is, the era of dawn life;
secondly, the Palaeozoic Era, that is, the era of ancient
life ; thirdly, the Mesozoic Era, that is, the era of
middle life ; fourthly, the Cenozoic Era, that is, the
era of recent life.
This distinction of eras is universally acknowledged
by geologists. It is founded upon the fact already re-

cited from Le Conte, that geologists find this number
of wholly distinct roch systems. These systems are
marked by the fact that they contain wholly, or almost
wholly, distinct species of plants and animals. But as
we have already seen, the Scriptures declare six periods.
Since, then, Geology declares only four^ how are we to
reconcile this difference of record?
We answer : The first of these geological periods, the
Archaean, corresponds to the first two days of Genesis.
;
The second geological period, the Palaeozoic, corre-

sponds to the third and fourth days of Genesis. The
third geological period, the Mesozoic, corresponds to
the fifth day of Genesis. And the fourth period, the
Cenozoic, corresponds to the sixth day of Genesis. But
if it be asked. Why is it that the Scripture makes two
days each of the ArcliEean and of the Palaeozoic periods ?
our answer is That the discrepancy is only in

this :
semblance^not in reality. Geology only takes cognizance

of changes in the structure of the solid earthy and in the
plants and animals which have lived upon it. It knows
nothing, and cannot possibly know anything, of changes
in the ski/. It tells us of four great changes in the
structure and in the life of the globe ; and the Scriptures
do the same. Thet/ tell us of four and onl^ four such
Eras. They are the first day, which corresponds to the
former part of the Archaean, or Eozoic Era the third ;
day, which corresponds to the former part of the Palaeo-

zoic Era the fifth day, which coincides with the Meso-
;
zoic Era ; and the sixth day, which coincides with the
Cenozoic Era. This leaves unnoticed the second day,
which, as will be seen by reference to the chart on page
24, corresponds to the latter part of the Archiean Era
and the fourth day, which corresponds to the latter part
of the Palaeozoic Era. But it was not possible for Geol-
ogy to notice those two days, because the Scripture
tells us that the work done on those days was wrought,
not upon the solid globe itself, but upon the heavens.
The second day's Avork was the making of the firma-
ment. This leaves no trace upon the sohd structure of
the globe, and, as a matter of course, Geology knows,
and can know, nothing about it. The fourth day's work
FIRST DAY. 29
was upon the sun, moon, and stars and of this, in like ;
manner, Geok)gy is necessarily ignorant. But while

Geology, from the very nature of the case, knows, and
can know, nothing of the work wrought in the heavens
upon those two days, it yet confirms the Scriptural rec-
ord in regard to it, as far as it is possible to give in its
was ample time for those
evidence. It tells us that there
two Scriptural days. It represents the Archsean Era
(the latter part of which was the second day of Scrip-
ture) as being probably as long as all the other three
eras put together. It also tells us that there was abun-
dant time in the Palseozoic Era for the fourth as well as
day of Scripture, inasmuch as this era was
for the third
more than twice as long as both the Mesozoic and Ceno-
zoic Eras put together. It is a fact, then, that the
Scriptures and Geology agree in assigning definite peri-
ods to the work of creation. They agree in declaring
the same number of life periods namely, four. And ;
they agree as to the time when these life periods occur.

But I have given you good and substantial reasons for
accepting the Scriptural statement that there were six
periods during the creation, rather than the geological
statement that there were only four. We are now
prepared to take up the Scriptural and geological records
of the successive periods arid compare them. But re-
member that confessedly Geology knows very little about
Archaean time that is, as we have already explained,
;
the time which corresponds to the first two days of the

Scripture.
We shall in speaking of the works wrought upon
these days, bring forward the Scriptural record first,
and compare it with the geological in so far as Geology

BO GENESIS AND GEOLOGY.
has any record. And any geological

in the absence of
record, we whether from the very nature
shall consider
of the case, the facts which the Scriptures declare must
not 7iecessarily have taken place, and that, too, in the
very order in which the Scriptures recite them.
The first verse of Genesis reads thus, " In the begin-
ning God created the heaven [or heavens] and the earth."
But here this question presents itself. How are we to
regard this verse ? whole
Is it a general preface to the
account of the creation ? reciting an act of God which
may have been performed any number of ages before
what is recited in the second verse ? or, is the account
of creation recited, the first work of the first day?
We incline to the belief that this first verse was in-
tended to be a preface to the whole chapter. And the
reason for so considering it is, that it is most in accord-
ance with the general structure of this Book of Genesis,
which is for the most part a series of prefaces. Regard-
ing the first verse as a preface to the first chapter, see
how entirely it accords with the general plan of the
book. We shall then have in this verse an account of
the creation of all the heavenly bodies, prefatory to a
more minute account in the balance of the chapter of
the formation of one particular world, namely, the earth.
The whole of the first chapter is an account of this
whole earth and all its creatures prefatory to an account
of one particular creature, namely, man, in the next
ten chapters. From the second to the end of the elev-
enth chapter we have a history of the whole race of
man, prefatory to taking up the history of a single fam-
ily, namely, that of Abraham, in the twelfth chapter.
From the twelfth to the end of the twenty-seventh
FIRST DAY. 31
chapter, we have a general account of this entire fam-

ily, prefatory to taking up a single branch of this family
ill the twenty-eighth chapter, namely, that of Jacob
and his descendants ; which is thence continued through
all the historical Scriptures.
But I wish particularly to call your attention to this
circumstance, namely, that if the first verse be a pref-
ace to the whole chapter, then it recites a work which
was wrought before the first day. If it is not a preface,
then it recites the first work of the first day.

But the work recited is the creation of the heavens ;
of the sun, the moon, and the stars as well as of the

earth.
Therefore the heavens [the sun, moon, and stars], were
created either before the first day, or on the first day. In
either event, thework wrought upon the heavenly bodies
on the fourth day was not an account of their creation^
inasmuch as that took place on or before the first day.
What it was.) and what is meant by the making (not
creating) on that day, I shall endeavor to explain in a
future lecture. But certainly Geology has nothing to
say in opposition to the statement that God at the very
commencement of the world's history created it. As
to what is meant by creation^ Geology knows nothing.
Whether God fashioned the Universe out of eternally
pre-existing matter, or whether he first called it into
being and then fashioned it, Geology knows not ; and it
is a question I shall not discuss, as it is foreign to our

purpose. I will, however, make this remark : That the
great Hebrew lexicographer Gesenius insists that there
is included in the root meaning of the word " create "
the idea of cutting out., or carving^ or separating. This
has no bearing upon the question as to whether or not

God made the Universe from nothing ; but it ma^ seem
to imply that in the beginning the heavenly bodies were
one mass of matter ; and that in the process of world-
building, God separated them into the various suns and
systems into which they are now unquestionably divided.
And moreover, it is in wonderful accord with the reve-
lations of the spectroscope, which indicates that the
matter of all the worldshomogeneous, consisting of
is
the very same materials, and may well have been sup-
posed to have been in the beginning one great homo-
geneous mass^ out of which they were formed and
ranged in the order hi which we see them.
In what condition the earth and tlie worlds were at
their creation, whether in an intensely heated and fused
state or not, or whether in a gaseous state or not, the
Scripture does not inform us. Yet, as we have seen in
the previous Lecture, there is evident, and indeed de-
mojistrative^ proof that the earth was at one time fused.
But while the text of Scripture does not say in so many
words that the earth was fused, yet it is on the supposi-
tion that it ivas so, that we can most readily account for
what we are told concerning its condition during the
first and second days, and indeed through the whole six
days of creation.
Let us now take up the second verse, and note its
statements very carefully. It reads thus : " And the

earth was without form, and void; and darkness was
upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters." Here are no less
than five circumstances, which I wish to examine sepa-
rately. First, it is said that the "earth was without
FIRST DAY. 33
form." This cannot mean that it was absolutely without

any shape for being a material object, it must have
;
had some shape or form. But a different rendering of

the Hebrew word, tohu., translated " without form," is
decidedly preferable. Gesenius tells us that it means

waste ; and this adopted in the recent re-
rendering is
vised translation. And surely nothing more waste and

dreary can be well conceived than the earth in the be-
ginning, when but recently advanced from a fused state,
and when a barren landscape stretched out intermin-
ably.
The next statement is, that at this time the earth was
void, that is, empty. The words are, ''and the earth
was without form, and void." Void of what? Not of
dead matter. The earth was in existence. All the
material elements which enter into its composition were
then in being. It was not void of matter but it WAS ;
void of life.
Geology has naught to say against this. It has no

record whatever of any kind of life at that early period.
And there could have been none ; now
such, at least, as
exists. For it was not originally in the waves of the
fiery ocean, nor in the volatilized substances and vapors
of the original atmosphere.
How then could there have been any life ? How could
ithave any existence, until the Creator, the living God,
spake, and called it into being ? Moses does not conflict
with geologists when he tells us that at this early period
the earth was void of manner of life.
all
That the earth was immersed in water soon after this?

appears from the following words, that " darkness was
upon the face of the deep " ; and that the " Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters." Indeed, here is a

double assertion by Moses that the whole world was in
the beginning submerged in water.
He teaches moreover that this submerged condition
continued until the beginning of the third day. For
(as you may remember) was on the third day that
it
God said, " Let the waters under the heavens be gath-
ered together unto one place, and let the dry laiid ap-
pear.'^' That is to say, geologically, that the earth con-
tinued in a submerged condition until the close of the
Archasan Era.
But before giving the testimony of Geology concern-
ing the submerged condition of the world during this
era, I will answer two questions which may arise in the
minds of some of you. One is as to how this sub-
merged condition of the world comports with what we
have already shown in our previous lecture as to the
earth's being a ball of fire in the beginning. The
second is as to where this great mass of water could
have come from. We answer, that we may very reas-
onably suppose that the earth's condition at the begin-
ning was very like the present condition of the sun.
It is on all hands admitted that the sun has an immense
^
atmosphere. Its magnitude has not, so far as I am
aware, been accurately ascertained. It has been com-

puted to be about one-seventh of the sun's diameter;
that is to say, it extends more than fifty thousand
miles in every direction from the body of the sun.
The outer edge of this atmosphere becomes visible to
us during a total eclipse of the sun, forming what is
called the corona around the circumference of the moon.
The spectroscope, too, assures us positively of the exist-
FIRST DAY. 35
ence of this atmosphere, and, moreover, that it is full of

a variety of volatilized substances. In like manner,
the earth must have had its luminous atmosphere in
th^ beginning. In addition to the atmospheric air which
now exists, this atmosphere must have contained all the
waters of the ocea7i in a state of vapor ^ besides a great
variety of other substances which were converted into
gases by the intense heat of the globe. I say, it must
have contained all the waters of the ocean, for it is plain
that all the waters now must have been in
in existence
existence then. But when was hot, they must
the earth
have existed in a state of vapor and this vapor must,
;
together with the atmospheric air, h.^^ formed an

immense atmosphere enveloping the globe. And if the
magnitude of this atmosphere bore a similar relation
to the bulk of the earth that the sun's atmosphere does
to the bulk of the smi^ it must have been some six
hundred miles, if not one thousand miles, in depth.
But the earth, being only the one and one-quarter
millionth part as large as the sun, would cool incom-
parably more rapidly than the sun. And as now we
see spots on the sun's face, hundreds of times as large
as this earth, and which are evidently, as we have shown
in the former lecture, huge masses of land forming
there so, in a small fraction probably of the time which
;
has elapsed since the earth's creation, a crust of land

must have formed upon the eartli's surface. But as
soon as this took place, the radiation of heat from the
earth's body would have been very sensibly diminished.
Then such volatilized substances as iron, nickel,
all
cobalt, and the

like, which must then have existed in
the earth's atmosphere, since they are now known to
exist ill the atmosphere of the sun, would be the first
to condense and inasmuch as they

to fall to the earth,
require a very intense heat to keep them in a gaseous
state. And by and by, the watery vapor^ five hundred
to one thousand miles away on the outer edge of the
earth's atmosphere, would begin to condense ; and
eve7itiially (after a long, long time, and after many
ineffectual struggles to descend to the earth), as the
outer surface of the earth's body continued to throw off
its heat, condensed vapor would reach the earth
this
and begin form water. And as vast ages rolled along,
to
this process would continue with ever-increasing rapid-
ity, so that at length, falling everywhere, over the whole
surface of the earth, the earth must, at length, necessa-

rily become entirely submerged. For it must be re-
membered that there could have been no mountains of
any size, even of a few hundred feet in altitude, in the
first ages ; but the whole world must have been almost
a plane ; because even when the crust of the earth
attained a mile or two of thickness, it would be so
shaken by the fires beneath that there would be no
permanent uplifts upon its surface.
But there was abundance of vapor in the atmosphere
to furnish water to cover tlie earth to a great depth.
For it must be remembered tliat even at this day in
which we now live, the ocean covers about three-fourths
of the whole surface of the earth and while its depth
;
in some places is eight or nine miles, its average depth

is some two or three miles. Consequently, if the East-
ern and Western Continents were at this present time
all submerged, and levelled into a plane, there is enough
water in the oceans to cover them and the whole earth

FIRST DAY. 37
to a depth of two miles. But, we say, in the very

nature of things, stai'tiug with the earth as a ball of
lire, the ocean 7nust at that time have been in tlie
atmosphere in a state of vapor ; and after the lapse of

ages the submerged condition of this whole earth must
necessarUi/ have been brought about. But what does
Geology testify in regard to this whole primeval period,
the first two days of Moses^ the Archwan Era of geolo-
gists ? We answêr, that while geologists do not profess
to know but little about it, except that it was of vast
duration, they are satisfied that the whole earth ivas
covered throughout this period by the waters of the
ocean. Dana, speaking of the state of things at the
close of the Archaean, or the beginning of the Paloeozoic,
period, or, according to Scriptural reckoning, the begin-
ning of the third daj^, says that the continents had just
then hegun to be made. Speaking of a certain portion
of Canada, and some small tracts of land in the United
States, he says " It [that is, the Canadian territory] is
:
the beginning of the dry land of North America, the

07'iginal nucleus of the continent. The smaller Archoean
areas mentioned [that is, the small tracts in the United
States,] appear to have been mountain ridges and islands
in the great continental seas. Europe had its Archa3an
lands at the same time in Scandinavia, Scotland, Bohe-
mia, and some other points and probably each of the
;
other continents was then represented by its spot., or

spots^ of dry land. All the rest of the sphere., excepting
was an expanse of ivaters.'^ This,
these limited areas.,
remember, was at the beginning of the third day.
According to Geology, at that time almost the whole
globe was covered with water. But geologists affirm
that even those small areas of land had all been formed
under the water, as appears from the nature of many of

the rocks, and that they had only a short time before
that been lifted out of the water. So that the opinion
of geologists is in full accord with the teaching of God's
holy Word, that throughout the whole of that vast
period of time, called in Scripture the first two days of
creation, and by geologists the Archaean Era, the entire
earth was submerged beneath the waters. Geologists
go further than this. They say that all the rocks of this
period which were not formed by fire, or by fire and
water combined, were formed under water, by settlings
from the waters. They say that throughout this period
there is not a vestige of a land plant of any description,
much less of any land animal. Everywhere over the
whole earth there reigned nothing but water, water,
water. Here, then, is certainly one very clear and re-
markable coincidence between Scriptural and geological
teaching. Even unbelievers must admit that. If
Moses was not inspired, he certainly guessed well when
he informed us that during the first two days of crea-
tion, that is, the Archaean period of geologists, the
earth was immersed in water.
But he tells us that " Darkness was upon the face of
the deep." Whence, it will be asked, came this dark-
ness ? We answer, that at the time the earth was first
submerged by the waters, it must necessarily have been
a period of darkness, and after a ivhile^ of utter darkness,
of darkness blacker than midnight.
Do you ask. How is this? I answer. It is because,
when the fiery, glowing earth was firmly crusted over,
and covered to some depth with waters, the light from
ÎRST DAY. 39
the earth's body was totally extinguished, and none could

reach the earth from the sun, nor moon, nor from the stars
of heaven; not, however, because these bodies did not then
exist, nor because they did not shine as brightly as they
do at this moment. But it was because of the immense
shroud of uncondensed vapor, the greater part of the
yet unfinished ocean, hundreds of miles in thickness,
which hung canopy over the entire expanse
as a black
of the waters. And expanse of vapor
this illimitable
did, no doubt, for an immense period of time, as effectu-
ally shut out the light of the sun and of the heavenly
bodies from ahove^ as did the earth's crust and the waters
upon it shut out the light from the fires beneath the
crust. In the very nature of things, tlien, we say, this
state of darkness must have existed and have reigned for
an immense period.
And Geology has not a word to utter against it. In
so far as it speaks at all^ it confirms it ; for if we trace
its intimations that this earth is a cooling ball of fire to
their source, we shall find the existence of such a period
an inevitable conclusion from that fact. Besides, the fact
that so large a proportion of the original living creatures
long after this time were without eyes is a decided indi-
cation that in the early ages there was but little use for
eyes, and consequently that those ages did not enjoy
anything to compare with that amount of light which
we now possess, when all the higher orders of living
creatures have the power of sight.
But this darkness, the Scripture says, " was upon the
face of the deep.'' What is the meaning of the word
" deep " ? According to our present use of tlie words,
"the deep" means simply the sea, or the ocean. And
we speak of the sea, or the ocean, as the deep because of

the depth of the waters. But the word here translated,
deep, Tehom, whereas the Hebrew word for the ad-
is
jective deep is not Tehom^ or anytliing akin to it. Tehom

does, in one of its derived meanings, seem sometimes to
refer to depth in the ordinary sense of that word.
But Gesenius informs us that Tehom is a poetic
word, and that primary signification is "a mass
its
of raging waters," being derived from the word houm^

which means to throw into commotion. It is true
that Tehom does not always imply this state of rage,
but it does so commonly. There is no such word as
" ocean " in the Bible. And although the word " sea "
occurs some four hundred times in the Old Testament,
yet in no case is it ever the translation of Tehom.
It is not improbable that the word Tehom was selected
to represent the ocean of this period, because of its radi-
calmeaning and that the deep here spoken of was, as

;
the word strictly implies, a mass of raging waters.

And certainly there is every reason to believe that the
ocean in the beginning was indeed in a state of wild
and often of tremendous commotion. For remember,
that at this time the crust of the earth was thin. And
if now that the internal fires are so many miles away
from us, they sometimes make the earth's frame quiver,
throw down and engulf cities, and roll the ocean in
upon the land, What a constant rocking must they have
kept up in the crust of the earth at this early period,
and consequent raging in the waters that covered it.
And then what a ferment would be produced over
immense areas by the frequent volcanic eruptions of the
period frequent, I mean, as compared with the present;
FIRST DAY. 41
and withal what tremendous winds must have prevailed,

stirring the ocean to its depths,and lashing it into fury!
For then there must have been something like what we
now call trade winds, except that the trade winds of
that period would have arisen wholly from the earth's
revolution upon its axis, and would have blown un-
ceasingly in a westerly direction. But they would have
constantly met with a highly excited state of the atmos-
phere, arising from constant currents of warm air from
the earth meeting with cool currents from the outward
atmosphere. And as now, with our limited atmosphere,
storms and hurricanes prevail more at sea than on the
land, and are more terrific in hot countries than in cold
ones, we cannot even imagine the tremendous howling
storms which must have rushed frantically over the
globe in that day, when the atmosphere was so immense,
when the whole earth was sea, and when the heat
emanating from the earth's entire body was so manifold
greater than it is at present. Geology, then, does not
contradict, but reason certainly justifies, the supposition
that the word Teliom was aptly chosen, on account of
its rootmeaning to express the condition of the ocean
of this period. And as Geology does tell us of rocks
of this period formed by the action of fire, and by the
combined action of fire and water, we may imagine how
they came into being through volcanic action and the
angry flood and how this same flood ground the rocks
;
to pieces and fitted the elements to form the sedimen-

tary rocks of the following and less disturbed period,
the second day of the Scriptures, the latter part of the
ArcJicean time of oncologists.
The next statement of the Scriptures, after the asser-
tion that darkness was upon the deep, is that "the

Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." In
these words there is a circumstance to be specially
noted. moved upon
It is the declaration that the Spirit
the waters. What meant by the declaration that the
is
Spirit of God, the Third Person of the blessed Trinity,

moved upon the waters ? Does it mean simply that he
glided over the waters in the dark, with no special ob-
ject in so doing ? That could hardly be the meaning of
Moses. The Holy Spirit must have had some purpose in
moving. What luas it ? We answer that we find the
word " moved," and kindred words, such as " moving,"
" moves," and the like, occurring seventy-two times in
the Old Testament and yet the word in the Hebrew is
;
never Tauhap\ except in this single instance. Wher-

ever else in Scripture the sacred writers express the
idea of moving^ they always use some other word than
rauliaph to convey that idea. In other Avords, rauhaph
is never translated moved in any other place in the
Scriptures. Does not this fact alone render it doubtful
whether " moved " is the proper rendering here. But
again, the great Hebrew lexicographer Gesenius, per-
haps the greatest Hebrew scholar of modern times,
gives no such meaning as moved to rauhaph but ;
especially notes that, in accordance with the radical

meaning of the tvord, it means, in this particular instance,
" brooded.^'' He declares that it is here used in refer-
ence to " the Spirit of God as brooding over and vivify-
ing the chaotic mass of the earth." And thus it was
interpreted by the highest authorities who lived two
hundred and more years ago,
scholars who knew
nothing whatever of Geology, and were guided simply
FIRST DAY, 43
by their knowledge of Scripture and the Hebrew lan-

guage. Bishop Patrick, the author of the Standard
Critical Commentary upon the Old Testament Scrip-
tures, lived justtwo hundred years ago, and in inter-
preting this passage of Scripture, says, " The word we
here translate moved,, signifies, literally,, brooded upon
the waters, as a hen doth upon her eggs " ; thus clearly
showing that he,, too, regarded this word as signifying
that at this time the Spirit of God infused that life into
the waters, of which the whole earth had previously
been empty.
In like manner the great poet and scholar John Mil-
ton, in his "Paradise Lost," addresses the Spirit of God,
and thus interprets the meaning of the word translated
" moved " in this passage of Scripture. " Thou," he says,
" from the first wast present, and with mighty wings out-
spread, dove-like, satst brooding on the vast abyss, and
mad'st it pregnmit^'; in other words, infused life into it.
We have, then, in these words the assertion by Moses

that toward the close of the first day, and consequently
long before the close of the Archaean period, life began
on this globe and further, that it began in the waters,

;
not, be it observed, upon the dry land. How does this

comport with the teachings of Geology ?
We answer It is in perfect accord with its teachings.

:
In the first place. Geology tells us that all life, both ani-
mal and vegetable, began in the waters. Dana reiterates
this again and again. Speaking of the early portion of
the second geological period, the beginning of the third
day of Scripture, he says " The plants of the period
:
that have left traces in the rocks were all sea-iueeds.

Among animals, the sub-kingdoms of radiates, mollusks,
and articulates were represented by water species, and

by them only." Even later than this, he says that " the
life of these periods was, as far as evidence has been col-
lected, from the American or foreign rocks, ivholly ma-
rine ; no trace of a fresh-water species of plant or animal
has been found. Indeed, all geologists agree that through-
out the Archaean period, the first two days of Holy Scrip-
ture, the earth was entirely submerged. Consequently,
it necessarily follows that if any life at all existed during
that period, it 7nust have existed in the water. But

did it exist at all during this period, according to the
testimony of Geology? It asserts very decidedly that
it believes that it did. It says that of this vast tract of
time it knows but little, that it cannot tell how soon life
began but it refers to facts which indicate that life be-

;
gan far, far back into the dim recesses of Archsean ages.
Geologists point to great masses of iron ore, to a great
abundance of limestone, and vast beds of graphite formed
during Archcean times. And as iron ores, limestones,
and graphite of after-ages are formed from the remains
of plants and animals, they infer that marine plants and
animals of a very simple type did exist long before the
close of Archaean times, and that, too, in great ahmdance.
So here, the Scriptural and geological records are
agai7i,
harmony.
in e7itire The next circumstance related in
order upon the first day by the sacred writer is the ap-
pearance of light in the midst of the darkness. This has
ever been a great stumbling-block to Scripture readers,
and even to commentators.
What ? they say.
^vas this light Where did it come
from before the sun, the moon, and the stars were cre-
ated ? They overlook the fact, to which I have already
To face p. 44.
;
FIRST DAY. 45
called your attention, that the very first words of the

record declare the creation of the heaveiis as well as the
earth in the hegmning^ and that this must mean that they
were created not later than the beginning of the first
day. When we come to consider the work of th.e fourth
day, we hope to explain to you how it happened that the
sun, moon, and stars then began to serve us for " signs,
and for seasons,and for days, and for years." But the
light here spoken of as appearing on the first day was
7iot a different light from sunlight. The sun, created
long ages before, the moon, and the stars also, were shin-
ing in the heavens with full power upon the dark vapory
mass, which both overshadowed the all-pervading sea,
and also for so long a period maintained the reign of
darkness over the surface of the deep. But the process
of condensation in the outer edges of this mass was ever
going on, adding from age to age more and more to the
waters of the ocean, ayid allowing the rays of the sun to
penetrate deeper atid deeper into its gloomy recesses^ until

by and hy it came doiun^ dow7i to the very surface of the
waters and thus light obtained a footing where for so

;
long a time there had been naught but thick darkness,

G-eology has nothing to say against this; but reason tells us
that this must certainly have been the course of events
in the passage of this globe from its primeval state as a
ball of fire.
After the appearance of light upon the globe, the
Scripture says, " God saw the light, that it was good."
And indeed it zs good; an incalculable blessing to liv-
ing things both in the animal and in the vegetable world

but most of all, because it is a type of God's Son, who in
the long subsequent ages was to shine upon the moral
darkness of the world, and to illuminate us with the

''
light of ?(fe." But, says the sacred penman, " God
divided the light from the darkness. And God called
the light Day, and the darkness he called Night." No
doubt the earth rotated upon its axis at that early period
even as it does 7wiv ; and night would prevail wherever
the body of the earth was turned away from the sun,
even as at this present moment. But it is not probable
that there was always dat/ then, as there is now, on those
parts of the earth which were turned toward the sun.
For frequently., as we have every reason to believe, per-
haps generally, heavy masses of clouds would so obscure
the sun as to make it midnight at midday. It was only,
we may suppose, at irregular intervals that light pierced
the clouds so as to give light even in the daytime. Nev-
ertheless there luere periods of light, AM^êi'er irregular, as
well as periods of darkness. These periods of light
were brought about by the earth's rotation. Whenever
they occurred, it was day. At all other times it was
night. On this subject, however, Geology is silent^ and
does not even claim to know anything. Whether the
views I have just expressed are true or not does not
materially affect the question of harmony between
Scriptural and geological teaching.
But the Scripture concludes this account of the work
of the firstday of creation by saying that "the even-
ing and the morning were the^rs^ day." In like man-
ner, the work of each other day of the creation, includ-
ing the sixths is followed by the assertion that the
evening and the morning were that day. It may well
be asked, Upon the supposition that these days were
vast geological periods, how could they be said to have
FIRST DAY. 47
an evening and a morning? And why is the evening

made to precede the morning? I will state what ap-
pears to me to be the most reasonable explanation of
this matter. It is this We have seen in the course of
:
this lecture that Moses presents the world to us in a

state of darkness, at or near the first, and of some light
afterwards. I understand, therefore, the first part of
this period, when darkness reigned, to be the evening,
and the latter part of it, when light was introduced, to
have been the morning. It may be objected to this,
that there was a period of light at first, when the earth

was a ball of fire, and consequently that that period was
not obscure, and therefore could not be called evening,
because of Its obscurity. But if the first verse be re-
garded as a preface to the chapter, as it well may be,
and as I believe it was intended to be, this period of
light would not be a part of the first day. The first day
would begin with the second verse. And that verse
tells us of a period when " darkness [that is, thick dark-
ness] was upon the deep." Regarding the first verse,

therefore, as a general preface to the whole chapter, as
it probably was, all difficulty on the score of the early
period of light is wholly removed. But even if this

period of light be regarded, as a part of the first day, it
may be that although was absolutely long, it was yet

it
relatively so short, as compared with the subsequent

period of darkness, that it was not considered worthy
of mention; especially as all thQ following days were to
have a somewhat similar evening and morning to those
of the first day.
But it will be asked. What were the evening and
the morning of the following days? I answer, that the
explanation of this is connected with the subject of

the vapor which remained so long as a great veil over
the earth, and of the certain existence of which, in the
beginning, I have already given you some account.
Suffice it to say at present, that there is reason to be-
lieve that this vapor was never entirely cleared away
for a long, long time perhaps not until the time of the
;
flood. Wh^/ it is reasonable to think so, I hope to ex-

plain hereafter. It must be remembered, however, that
this immense mass of vapor, representing all the waters
of the oceans, of the lakes and rivers, and of the fount-
ains imder the earth., began to condense when the earth
was first well crusted over, and probably continued con-
densing, gradually more and more, throughout the whole
six days of creation^ and even afterwards. But if this
were so, then the beginning of the second day was a
period of obscurity as compared with the close of that

day. The beginning of the third day was obscure as
compared with its close ; and so on through all the fol-
lowing days. Suppose the light at the end of the first
day was equal which the earth derives from
to the light
the moon at the period of full moon. And suppose
that on each day, as the vapors continued to condense,
the light increased in a tenfold ratio. Then at the end
of the second day the light of the sun in the daytime
would have been equal to that of ten full moons. At
the end of the third day it would have equalled that of
one hundred full moons; the fourth day would have
closed with the light of one thousand full moons the ;
fifth, with that of ten thousand full moons the sixth ;
day, with that of one hundred thousand full moons.

But the sunlight at this day in which we now live is
;
FIRST DAY. 49
equal to that of three hundred thousand full moons so

astronomers tell us, and so it can be mathematically
demonstrated. Consequently, the morning of the sixth
day would have closed with but the third part of the
light which we now have and its evenmg would have
;
begun with only the thirtieth part of it. In this view of

the matter we may, I think, ivell understand what is
meant by the evening and the morning of each day
inasmuch as each period at its commencement was one
of darkness^ as compared with its close.
Before closing I would call your attention to the exact
order of events as set forth by the sacred writer an ;
order, which as far as I have been able to observe, is

carried out minutely through the entire work of the six
days and which consequently makes the harmony with
;
the geological record all the more wonderful and con-

vincing to those who are weak in the faith. First, ob-
serve that according to the Scriptures, God created the
heavens., then the earth. But almost all the heavenly
bodies that we see are suns. And if, as is 'probable, the
planets are the children of the sun ; then to say that
God created first the heavens, then the earth, is the
natural order of events. The parent first, the children
afterwards. Next in order follows the account of a
waste and empty earth. This of course would be after
the creation. And it would also precede the period
when darkness reigned upon the deep, because it
would have been waste and empty as soon as the earth's

crust was formed; but there would not have been at
once complete darkness. For the thinness of the
earth's crust would have been the occasion of frequent
yolcanic eruptions, which would have tended to mitigate
the gloom. And

besides, the iramense body of heated
atmospheric and carbonic acid gas which then ex-
air
isted would have absorbed a vast amount of the vapor
and permitted some light to reach the earth from the
sun> After this, however, as the earth's crust increased
in thickness, there would also be an increase in the
depth of the ocean, and an increased condensation of
the watery vapors of the atmosphere, which would
cause darkness upon the deep. So that this event, too,
occurs in due order. But as time rolled on, the waters
would lose a portion of their heat preparatory to the
next event stated in Scripture, namely, the brooding of
the Spirit of God upon the waters, and his filling them
with life. These first living creatures doubtless had no
need of lights as they were of the simplest character,
and we find that now clams, oysters, and even moles
have no need of it. But by and by the time would
come when the vapors would condense so as to allow
light to reach the world from the sun and as the earth
;
was already in motion upon its axis, it would cause a

dividing of the light from the darkness, and make the
beginning of day and of night. Thus, in due order,
ended the work of the first day.
But, in conclusion, let me call your attention to some
very wonderful things in connection with this Scrip-
tural record of the first day. Observe, in the first
place, that it is in no respect in conflict with geological

teachings. Observe, secondly, how it harmonizes with
the teachings of Natural Science and of Geology in a
variety of particulars. First, Natural Science and Geol-
ogy lead us to believe that this world was once a ball
of fire. Moses does not sai/ so in so many words but ;
FIRST DAY. 51
we have seen how what he does say harmonizes with

that idea and presupposes it to be a fact. Thirdly,
both Geology and Scripture assert that the work of the
creation was not continuous, but broken up into definite
periods. And although at first sight there seems to be
a discrepancy as to the number of the periods, yet we
have seen that Geology speaks of the earth alone, and
of life periods, and that Scripture and Geology agree as
to the number of the life periods. But that the two
other periods of which the Scriptures speak were such
as, from the nature of the case. Geology could not know
anything about, yet it asserts that there was ample

time for them. Fourthly, Geology teaches that the
Archaean period was immensely long, perhaps as long as
the entire period which has elapsed since. Scripture
says that it did embrace two days, two geological
periods, one-third of the whole number which elapsed
during the creation. Fifthly, Geology says that the
whole earth was in the earliest ages buried in water.
Moses says the same thing. Sixthly, Geology says that
this state of things continued until the close of the
Archaean period, which I have stated, time and again,
corresponded with the first two days of Scripture.

Scripture also says the same thing as to the length of
time during which this submergence of the entire globe
continued. Lastly, Moses and Geology entirely agree
in stating that life began in the luaters. But I ask any
reasonable person to say whether this coincidence be-
tween the teachings of Moses and natural science in so
many particulars in regard to the original condition of
this globe, and their conflict in no particular, would not
be a very wonderful thing, if Moses were not inspired.
I
Would it not be still more wonderful that Moses, with-

out that knowledge of natural science which we possess,
and of Geology in particular, could, if uninspired^ have
and followed it in
so struck the straight line of truth,
exact order., without the slightest deviation from it?
And viewing the subject, not from a Christian, but from
a geological, standpoint, does not a consideration of the
account of this first day alone make it difficult to con-
ceive that Moses did not receive some enlightenment

from God in regard to so profoundly mysterious a sub-
ject?
To face, p. 53.
Lectuee hi.
PART I.
SECOND DAY. GEN. I. 6-8.
T~N our last lecture we noted the fact that according

-L to Scripture the work of creation was not continu-
ous, but broken up into distinct and well-defined
periods^ six in number. We showed that Geology also
teaches us that the earth's history is broken up into dis-
it numbers onXj four.
tinct periods; of which, however,
The reason why Geology numbers but four is, that it
studies only the structure of the earth itself, and the
vegetable and animal tribes that have dwelt upon it.
The Scripture, in like manner, tells us of only four

such periods. But the Scripture goesbeyond the struc-
ture of the globe itself, and further tells us of two days,
or periods, which Geology could not possibly know
anything about, inasmuch as during their time two
great operations were performed upon the atmosphere.
So that there is here really no conflict whatever. But
I also showed you that Geology admits that its first
two eras were each of them long, enough for the extra
period of which the Scripture informs us,
one of them,
the second day of Scripture, occurring in its Archaean i
the other, the fourth day of Scripture, in its Palaeozoic

Era.
We gave you our reasons for considering the
also
first verse of Genesisi. as a preface to the whole chap-
ter, rather than as a part of the first day. We then
proceeded to examine the work of the first day, and
called your attention to the fact that the Scriptures
declare that in the beginning of that day the earth was
utterly waste ; that it was void of life ; and that after
a time darkness reigned everywhere upon the face of
the angry deep. By and by, however, the Spirit of
God went forth and brooded upon the waters, infusing
into it the elements of life ;
probably both of vegetable
and of animal life. The next step was the in-coming of
light, which was necessarily followed by alternations of
periods of light and darkness, causing the succession of
day and night. We also explained how it was that this
long period of the first day could with propriety be
said to have its evening and its morning. In like man-
ner, we explained how it was that all the remaining
days of the six had each its evening and morning. It
is worthy of note, that the two great ivorks of this first
day were the introduction, first of life^ and then of lights

into the world. In all this we showed that there is no
conflict w^hateverwith geological teaching but, on the ;
contrary, a remarkable correspo7idence with it in a vari-

ety of particulars.
We now come to consider the teachings of Holy
Scripture as to the work of the second and third days ;
and first, as to that of the second day, the latter part of

the Arclioeayi Era of geologists. We have already re-
peatedly said that Geology, whose researches are con-

SECOND DAY. 55
fined to an examination of the teaching of the rocks^

knows nothing about this period inasmuch ; as the work
wrought on this day had nothing whatever to do with
the rocks or their contents. We shall not therefore in-
quire as to its harmony with geological teaching. But,
regarding the earth as having advanced from a state of
fusion to that condition of submergence and of incipient
life and light in which it was at the close of the first
great period, or day, of Scripture, we shall again inquire
whether, in the very nature of things^ the events which
the Scriptures inform us as having occurred on the sec-
ond day, which could not have happened
are not events
before that time, but must naturally be expected to take
place at that time. The work of this day is summed
up in three verses, which I will repeat, so that we may
have them distinctly before our minds. They read
thus: "And God said. Let there be a firmament in the
midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from
the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided
the waters which were under the firmament from the
waters which were above the firmament and it was so. :
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the even-

ing and the morning were the second day."
There is here, you perceive, 07ie single object which
God is said to have made on the second da}^, namely,
the firmament. And we are told of its position^ that it
was in the midst of the waters and also of one purpose

;
which it subserved, namely, the dividing of the waters

which were under the firmament from the waters which
were above the firmament. But what was the firma-
ment which God is said to have made on the second
day? The marginal rendering is "expansion." But
^Q GENESIS AND GEOLOGY.
what is the expansion, or what can it be, but the sky?

That it does mean the sky, or some part of it, is con-
firmed by the eighth verse, in wliich we are told that
God called the firmament Heaven. Undoubtedly, then,
the firmament is lieaven. But this word " heaven " is, of
itself, ambiguous. For the Scriptures speak of no less
than three distinct heavens. Ordinarily, in speaking of
heaven, we mean the special abode of God and his holy
angels and this is called by St. Paul the third heavens.
;
It is impossible, however, to suppose that this is the

heavens here spoken of, which was something made
here upon earth, and situated in the midst of the waters.
And for the same reason it cannot mean the region of
the stars, which are also called heaven in Scripture.
And besides, those heavens are, in the first verse of this
chapter, declared to have been already created. But
the region of the atmosphere is also called heaven as, ;
in the twentieth verse of this very chapter, God is said

to have called for the formation of fowls of various
kinds, which might '"fly above the earth in the open
firmaraent of heaven."" But the fowls fly in the air;
consequently, as it could not have been God's own
dwelling-place, nor yet the region of the stars, it must
be the air that is here spoken of as the firmament, or
heaven, that was formed on the second day. But this
is still further evident from the object for wliich this
this firmament was formed, namely, to separate the
waters which were underit from the waters which were
above it. Now, the waters below the firmament can

only mean the waters on the earth; and the waters
above the firmament can only mean the waters in the
sky; consequently, the firmament here spoken of as
SECOND DAY. 57
separating the waters of the earth from the waters of

the sky must mean the atmosphere, and cannot mean
anything else.
But what are we to understand by the assertion that

the atmosphere was made on the second day? We
answer, that it is evidently impossible that there
could have been anything like such an atmosphere as
we now have for long ages after the creation of the
world, and therefore not before the second day. The
sun has an immense atmosphere at this day ; but it is
not like ours. The spectroscope shows us that it is full
of innumerable substances, perhaps hundreds of them,

many of them metals, in a gaseous state. And such,
no doubt, was the atmosphere of the earth in the
beginning. But all these various substances were not
only commingled, but in a state of iyitense commotion.
The intense excitement of the sun's atmosjjhere may
be faintly imagined from this circumstance : that a
flame has been seen to shoot out on the sun's face
eighty thousand miles in ten minutes. Here, on earth,
no tornado ever blows two hundred miles in an hour.
What, then, shall we think of a blast which would ex-
tend eight thousand miles in one minute? More than
twice the distance across the Atlantic Ocean in sixty
seconds ! It is true that there tvas nothing like this in-
tense excitement in the vapors which surrounded the
earth at the close of the first day. But throughout that
period, heated as the earth then was, the excitement
must have been very great, so as to keep the elements
of the vapory shroud which girded the earth, and the
atmosphere which was mixed with it, in a constant
whirl; so that for a long, long time the whole vapory
and atmospheric mass would be in a state of such con-

stant agitation that there could be no permanent separa-
tion of its elements.
But it is an eternal law of physics that in all fluids
whatever, when in a state of moderate composure, the
heavier substances will descend, and the lighter ascend.
As, therefore, the earth's body became less heated, the
excitement of the vapory and atmospheric mass which
surrounded it must also diminish. The air which now
is, and which consists of oxygen and nitrogen, with a
small body of carbonic acid gas, all mingled together,
must have been in existence then but owing to the ;
great ferment which was kept up, it was thoroughly

mingled with that vast mass of uncondensed vapor
which surrounded the globe. But there was then im-
mensely mo7'e carbonic acid gas mingled with the atmos-
phere than there is now; and as it and atmospheric
air are both decidedly heavier than vapor, it would nec-
essarily follow, m the course of time^ that they would
gradually settle to the bottom, as the whole mass of air
and vapor combined became less disturbed. And while

they settle to the bottom, of course the vapor^ being
lighter,would ascend. You have all seen this principle
verified,time and again, in a lamp containing water
and oil. Shake the lamp for some time, and the two
elements of oil and water will be mingled together.
But so soon as you set the lamp down and let it rest,
the water, being heavier, will all sink to the bottom,
and the oil, being lighter, will float upon the top.
And thus you will be enabled to see how itwas that
when God called the firmament into being itwas sit-
uated in the midst of the waters, and also how it was
SECOND DAY. 59
that it seemed to separate the waters which were under

the firmament from the waters wliich were above the
firmament. I must confess, however, that this state-
ment of Moses, that the air separated the waters under
the firmament from those above, was a great stumbling-
block to me for many long years, because it seemed
to me that the little water there was in the air had as-
cended there from the earth, and that it existed in the
form of clouds wliich were really not above the air, but
only at the utmost a mile or two from the earth's sur-
face. But remember, that at this time, that is, the sec-
ond day, there luas no visible earth, but that it was
spread all over with one vast unbroken sheet of water.
Remember, too, that at this time probably not more
than one-half of all the waters of the oceans had con-
densed but that still one-half^ or more^ of all that now
;
constitutes the oceans and other waters hung hundreds

of miles aloft in a state of vapor. So that as the heavier
atmosphere settled from the mass of vapor above, it
must of course have rested everywhere beneath upon
the waters and eventually, when pretty much the
;
whole 7nass of the air had thus settled, the result would
be that it would lie directly between the condensed
waters of the ocean below and the z^wcondensed waters
of the ocean above. And thus it was that the firma-
ment was, when God made it, in the midst of the
waters, and did separate the waters which were under
the firmament from the waters which were above the
firmament. It remains that I should direct your at-
tention to the fact that God tells us that the making of
the firmament occupied one entire day. And those
days, remember, were periods of immense and almost
inconceivable duration. It may seem very strange that

such a vast period of time should have been occupied in
forming one single object, and that so apparently sim-
ple an object as the atmosphere. But it is only reason-
able to expect that after the atmosphere began to be
formed it would do so very slowly. For the storms of
the first and vapor mixed, did
day, which kept the air
not cea>ie all at once at the close of the day.
For ages
afterwards the same causes which produced them in the
beginning would continue to produce them only, how- ;
ever, with a very slow and gradual abatement. I have

hardly a doubt that even throughout the third and
fourth days of Scripture, and perhaps later still, storms
swept over this earth and over the seas, such as we have
no conception of. And as the vapor which originally
surrounded the earth only very gradually condensed.^
and probably had not finished doing so until after the
creation of man, so the carbonic acid gas and atmos-
pheric air which were originally mingled with the vapor
could only subside very gradually, and would continue
to be mingled with it more or less after the lapse of
ages from the time when their subsidence commenced.

But what has been said in explanation of the time
and manner in which the firmament, or atmosphere, was
formed, is based upon the assumption that this earth
was originally, and for vast ages afterwards, surrounded
by an enormous shroud of vapor, probably hundreds of
miles in thickness. It was upon this assumption, also,
that I explained in the previous lecture the succession
of evening and morning during the six days of the
creation. Indeed, the explanation of almost all the
works of the first day are based upon this supposition,
;
SECOND DAY. 61
It is important, therefore, that I should fulfil the prom-

ise given in my
second lecture, that I would recur to
the subject, and show what assurance we have that the
existence of such a vaporous mass in the beginning was
really a fact ; and, moreover, that there is satisfactory
proof that it continued in a gradually diminishing vol-
ume for a long time, even perhaps until after the crea-
tion of man.
We say, then, first, that the existence of vast oceans,
miles in depth, over about three-fourths of the surface
of this globe at this moment, is an unquestionable fact.
Secondly, we say that no one can doubt that the

matter which constitutes these oceans has existed from
the beginning. The waters which now constitute the
oceans existed somewhere on this globe, or near it, when
the earth was made. must have been somewhere
It
when this earth was a ball of fire. But it is impossible
that it could then have existed in the form of water
because the intense heat would necessarily have caused
it to evaporate. In such a heated state of this globe
the oceans' waters must necessarily have existed in a
state of vapor. But that vapor could not have existed
in the bowels of the earth, because the materials of
which the earth is composed being so much heavier
than the vapor, it could not have penetrated one inch
below its surface. But the volume of this vapor must
have been so great that it could not possibly lie close to
the earth. Convert all the waters of the ocean at this
moment into vapor, and they must inevitably form a
vast winding-sheet, extending hundreds of miles^ above
the globe all over its surface. And if this would be
the case now^ so must it have been the case then^ If,
then, we admit that the earth was a ball of fire in the

beginning, I do not see how it is possible to escape the
conclusion that at that time the waters of the ocean
encompassed the earth in a state of vapor hundreds of
miles in thickness. At first, probably, owing to the
intense heat, which greatly rarefied the vapor and also
increased the absorbing power of the atmosphere, this
vapor was transparent. But when the earth's crust was
formed, and its body began to cool, this vapor would
necessarily begin to condense, and form water, which
would eventually cover the surface of the whole globe.
But it would take a long time for so vast a volume to
condense for remember that for many, many ages
;
afterward the earth was a warm body, even at its poles.

And this, as a matter of course, would retard the con-
densation of the vapor. And there is good reason to
believe that if it had not been for the waters of the
flood, a very considerable portion of that original vapor
would have continued uncondensed even until this day.
There is an analogical arguinent bearing on this sub-
ject, and which, with me at least, has great weight to
prove that the earth was originally, and for a long time,
surrounded by the vaporous mass of which I speak. It
is this This earth is not an isolated body it is a mem-
: ;
ber of a homogeneous system. Originally sprung, as it

is most probable, from the body of the parent sun, it un-
questionably has sister-planets encircling that orb along

with itself. Now, as we know the constitution of our
own bodies from what we know of that of other human
bodies, and as all human beings sprung from the same
parents, run through the same general course of infancy,
youth, manhood, and age, so may we well suppose that
SECOND DAY. 63
the planets passed through the same general experience,

and we may argue from the condition of one to that of
another. Look, then, to the heavenly bodies, the plan-
ets, I mean, and inquire wliat their experience is in
reference to the vaporous envelope.
Let Mercury give her experience first she is nearest
;
the sun. Has she any vapor about her ? She is so near
the sun that she can hardly be examined as accurately
as some others but there is good reason to believe that
;
she is enveloped in vapor because if the bodi/ of the

:
planet were visible to the telescope, there would be spots

on its body, as we with our unaided eyes can very
clearly see spots in the moon. It is true that spots have
been seen in Mercury, but very rarely. Astronomers
had for a long time been observing it before any one
ever succeeded in detecting a spot. This shows that the
body of the planet is rarely seen, and consequently as-
tronomers very naturally have inferred that it is encom-
passed by a dense, cloudy vapor, and perhaps that, with
this screen, it is quite habitable notwithstanding its
nearness to the sun.
Venus comes next in order. It is of all planets near-
est to the earth, and at thesame time it is almost equal
to the earth, both in size and density.
There seems to
be no doubt but that it is completely enveloped in cloudy
vapors. Although spots have been seen on the planet,
they are not thought to be the bodi/ of the planet, but are
attributed to clouds. Herschel expressed a doubt as to
whether the hod^ of the planet ever had been seen. The
existence of a cloudy vapor surrounding the body of
Venus, like that which I have maintained originally sur-
rounded this earth, is established by its appearance in
its transits across the sun. For on the occasion of two

of its transits at least, astronomers observed a faint ring
of light completely surrounding the planet, on the outer
edge of its disc. This shows not only the existence of
a vaporous mass, but also that it is of considerable den-
sity.
Mars is next in order. It is only one-seventh the size

of this earth, of one-half density, and more than fifty
its
millions of miles more distant from the sun. Owing to

its small size and greater distance from the sun, it has
cooled more rapidly than the earth. Its inferior density,
taken in connection with its inferior mass, indicates that
it was formed after this earth. not so mature a
It is
planet as this earth, encompassed by a cloudy vapor,
is
but not so entirely as Mercury and Venus.

Of Uranus and Neptune, owing to their immense dis-
tance and recent discovery, but little is known. But,
I ask, Does not the present clouded condition of Mer-
cury, Venus, and Mars, particularly of the first two,
strongly confirm the argument already adduced to show
that such was formerly the condition of this globe?
We may infer, especially from the density of Venus
taken in connection with the fact that its distance from
the sun is less than three-fourths of that of the earth,
that it is of about the same age as this earth, and possi-
bly older. The fact that its vapor is still uncondensed,
gives at least plausibility to the idea that a great and
final precipitation of the earth's vapory envelope took
place at the flood; that it was this that supplied the
water for the great forty days' rain, and that its pre-
cipitation arose, as the Scripture informs us, from the
breaking up of the " fountains of the great deep." hj
SECOND DAY. Qb
which, I suppose, it is meant that a great, perhaps tem-

porary, upheaving of the oceans' beds threw up on the
surface the ahiiost icy waters which everywhere, even
under the equator, lie a short distance below the warm
surface waters ; thus suddenly chilling the atmosphere,
and causing an immense precipitation of vapor in the
form of rain.
Had I time to speak of the condition of the other
two planets of the solar sj^stem, Jupiter and Saturn, I
could show how it confirms everything that has been
said from the beginning of these lectures in regard to
the original fused condition of the earth, its subsequent
crusting over with land, and the formation of a vapory
mass with which all planets seem for a long time to be
encompassed. The existence, therefore, of such a vapor
about this earth, and its long continuance, perhaps
until after the creation of man, I regard as little short
of certainty. It is a key which unlocks the doors of
mystery as to the condition of this globe and its sur-
roundings in those periods of remote antiquity in refer-
ence to which geology is compelled to confess its igno-
rance.
God, however, in the account of the first two days,
has given us a statement of the leading facts ; and with
the aid of this almost certainly demonstrable fact of the
original fused condition of the globe and the dense
vapor which follows as an inevitable consequence, we
find the sacred page illumined, and the causes and nat-
ural sequence of the mysterious facts which it relates
become apparent.
We say, then, that in neither the account given us in
Holy Scripture of the first day's work, nor in that of the
second, is there the slightest conflict with the teachings

of Geology, or of Natural Science. On the contrary,
wherever Geology has a voice to utter, it is but a re-
echoing of what Moses wrote more than three thousand
years ago. And Natural Science only raises her voice to
reaffirm the truths of the inspired record.
PART 11.
THIRD DAY. GEN. I. 9-13.
TTTE are now prepared to consider the work of the

^ ' third day, or period, of the creation. This, you
will remember, is the beginning of the second great geo-
logical era. It is called the Palaeozoic Era, or the era of
ancient life. It does indeed usher in a new era in the

world's history. Its duration is immense ; it is more
than twice as long as the two following eras, the Meso-
zoic and the Cenozoic, put together. It does, in point
of fact,embrace two eras, or periods, the third and the
fourth days of Scripture. But G-eology knows nothing
of the fourth day, from the fact that the fourth day was
not a period of transformation of the earth, but rather
like the second day, a period of further action upon the
heavens.
The Palseozoic Era, besides numerous minor epochs,
is divided into three great ages, called, first, the
Silurian ; secondly, the Devonian ; and thirdly, the Car-
boniferous Age. The first two of these, the Silurian and
Devonian, correspond to the third day of Scripture.
The third, the Carboniferous Era, is the fourth day of
Scripture.
Remember now the condition of the earth at the close
of the second day of Scripture. The earth, over its whole
surface, is one wide waste of waters. But these waters
are not tenaiitless, as they were in the beginning; they

are full of life, both of vegetable and of animal life, in
its very simplest forms. Above these waters rests an at-
mosphere highly charged with carbonic acid gas. This
atmosphere being heavier than vapor, has, during a
course of ages, gradually settled from the vapor with
which for a long time it had been commingled. Over
and upon this atmosphere, to a vast height, rests a great
cloud of vapor, not quite shutting out the light of the
sun, but rendering all things quite obscure, even in the
daytime. Still the solid globe is everywhere beneath
the waters. But the time has come when God is about
to form living things, for whose benefit the light of the

first day and the air of the second day have been pro-
duced. In order to this, the rocks buried beneath the

waters must raise their heads per7nanentli/ above the
waves, must receive living organisms upon their surface,
and must nourish and sustain those organisms. Let us
have distinctly before us the Scriptural record of the
eveyits of the third day of Scripture. They are found in
Genesis i. 9-13. '' And God said, Let the waters under
the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let
the dry land appear and it was so. And God called
:
the dry land Earth and the gathering together of the

;
waters called he Seas and God saw that it was good."

:
We will pause here for the present. There are two

great works that were wrought upon the third day. The
formation of land was one of them. The creation of
vegetation of various kinds was the other.
From the words just recited we learn, that after a
long reign of waters upon the globe, God spake first to
the waters., that they should retire to one place ; and

THIRD DAY. 69
then commanded the dry land to make its appearance.

But we have another, more elaborate, and very beauti-
ful description of this same event in Psalm civ. The
Psalmist setting forth the praises of God, speaks of
him as having " laid the foundations of the earth, that
itshould not be removed forever. Thou coveredst it
with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood
above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled at the ;
voice of thy thunder they hasted away. They go up

by the mountains they go down by the valleys unto
;
the place which thou hast founded for them. Thou

hast set a bound that they may not pass over that ;
they turn not again to cover the earth." I have

often had occasion to observe that in our translation
of the Scriptures the translators have sometimes en-
deavored to explain the meaning of the Hebrew,
instead of giving a literal translation. This is the
case in this beautiful description of the first work of
the third day, rendering the eighth verse thus, " They
go up by the mountains; they go down by the val-
leys." would seem that they interpreted the Scrip-
It
ture as referring to the flood, and could see no sense
in the literal translation of the Hebrew, which, how-
ever, they inserted in the margin in these words,
" The mountains ascend, the valleys cZescend." But
it is evident that the Psalmist has no reference what-
ever to the flood, but to the creation. This appears
from the first words, " who laid the foundations of
the earth, that it should not be removed forever."
And from the next also, " Thou coveredst it with the
deep as with a garment." Here he repeats what
Moses tells us, that at the creation the waters envel-
opecl tliQ whole world. "The waters," says the Psalm-

ist, "stood above the mountains." The crust of the
earth must at the close of the second day have been
some eight or ten miles thick; and consequently, as
frequent as were the convulsions of this period, there
must have been, as there are now^ mountains beneath
the waters. Referring to the waters, he says, "At
thy rebuke they fled at the voice of thy thunder
;
they hasted away." There must indeed have been

a thunder such as there never was before or since.
For he goes on to say, according to the literal transla-
tion :
" The mountains ascend, the valleys descend unto
the place which thou hast founded for them" that is, ;
for the waters. There have been great convulsions

since upon this globe but never, perhaps, was there
;
siich thundering as on this occasion, when the ribs of
the whole earth were broken, when the continents, like

great mountains, reared their crests above the waves,
and other portions of the rocks of the globe sank still
deeper than before, miles and miles down into valleys
deep enough to hold the waters. But the Psalmist
proceeds to tell us that this uplift of the land was to be
permanetit^ and that the waters never again should over-
whelm them. His words are " Thou hast set a bound :
that they [that is, waters] may not pass over; that
they turn not again to cover the earths We have, then,
the clear testimony of Scripture that, after a long reign
of waters upon the earth, there came at length a time
when the rocks were lifted out of the waters, and lands
were formed ; and that this was to be a permanent state
of things, lasting through all time.
Has G-eology anything to say on this subject? Does
THIRD DAY. 71
it speak of any such event as the formation of land at

this time ? most distinctly and positively. It
It does^
tells us that in North America the continent began in
Canada and Labrador and in the region to the west and
northwest of Hndson's Bay. That in Europe it began
in Norway and Sweden, Scotland, and Bohemia. In
other continents it supposes there were contemporary
lands lifted from the waters; but Geology has not suffi-
ciently advanced to locate them. It tells us, moreover^
that an exterisive revolution of wplifting lands from the

ivaters was a closing event of the Archi3ean Age. True,
this great upheaval is spoken of as a closing event of the
Archoean Age, whereas Scripture speaks of it as the fi7'st
event of the next age. But it is a mere question of
propriety, as to whether we shall call the upheaval of
the continents the closing event of one age, or the be-
ginning of the next. But it is manifestly preferable to
speak of it as the Scriptures do, as the first event of a
new age. For when water had reigned upon the earth
through unnumbered ages, with what propriety shall
we identify the appearance of land with the watery
era? No, the appearance of land was the beginning
of a new era it was introductory to the appearance of
;
a new species of life upon the globe ; and therefore it
is manifestly the beginning of the third day, or period,

and not the close of the second. But the important
consideration is, that Geology and Scripture. agree as to
the fact that a great upheaval of lands from the waters
did then take place. The upheaval was enormous. In
Canada the rocks have a thickness of some forty thou-
sand feet; that is, between seven and eight miles. In
Bohemia they are still thicker. They are everywhere
contorted in a remarkable degree, and bear upon them

the impress offire and of water. What a tremendous
upheaval was that which brought the rocks, from so
many miles beneath, up on to the surface, and even
above the waters which previously had covered them !
It is true that the area actually above the water was

comparatively small at first. But Geology tells us that
whole eontinents^ as they 7iow are^ were uplifted at the
time of which we speak, and that the deep channels of
the ocean were then formed. The great hody of the
continents was upheaved at that time; but they lay
just beneath the waves. Dana says " The great, but
:
yet unmade, continents, although so small in the

amount of dry land, were not covered by the deep
ocean, but only by comparatively shallow oceanic
waters. They lay just beneath the waves, already out-
lined. Portions may have been at times a few thou-
sands of feet under water; but in general the depth
was small compared with that of the ocean."
Here you see how strikingly this accords with the
marginal translation of verse eight of Psalm civ., which
tells us that at this time the valleys of the ocean had
descended^ to hold the waters that the mountains had

;
ascended, whole continents, and the effect of all this

was to bring about the result declared in Genesis i.,
namely, that the dry land was made to appear ; that
is, some portions of the mountain crests rose above
the waves. But the Scripture tells us that the land
having now appeared, it was never again to be sub-
merged. It is a great mistake to suppose that whole
continents ever became ocean beds after this emerging in
the beginning of the third great geological day, or period,
!
THIRD DAY. 73
or that there ever had been any previous continents.

Speaking of the American continent, Le Conte says,
" The continent was already sketched out at the begin-
ning, and steadily developed throughout its continu-
ance." But Dana, speaking of the whole worlds says
that there is " little doubt that the existing places of
the deep ocean and of the continents were determined
even in the first formation of the earth's crust, in the
early Archaean Era,
and that in all the movements that
have since occurred, the oceans and continents have never
changed places." How signally do these words accord
with the teaching of Scripture, that when God in the
beginning assigned to the sea and the dry land their
respective places, he set to the waters " a bound that
they may not pass over ; nor turn again to cover the
earth" ! And how signally does the entire geological
account of a great continental upheaval at this time
coincide with the teachings of Holy Scripture, that at
that time the waters were commanded to be gathered
together unto one place, and that dry land then first
made its appearance But had
after the land
been lifted up from beneath the waters of the ocean,
on the third day, there was another event which occu-
pied the balance of this third day of Scripture ; and
that was the clothing of the earth with vegetation.
We have the account of it in these words, " And God
said.Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding
seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind,
whose seed is in itself, upon the earth : and it was so.
And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yield-
ing seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit,
whose seed was in itself, after his kind : and God saw
that it was good. And the evening and the morning

Avere the third day." Before speaking particularly of
these three classes of vegetation here enumerated, let
me your attention to this fact, that after the up-
call
lifting of the lands from the waters, the formation of
these three classes of vegetation was the tvork of the
balance of this entire period. We are not to expect
therefore to find them all in the beginning of the
period; but we are to expect to find them all before
its close. I would also have you not forget the fact
that in the Mosaic account of the events of the crea-
tion they appear to be enumerated with a scrupulous
adherence to the exact order in which those events
occurred. It is true that the Scriptures nowhere
assert this, or necessarily imply it. But we find from
an examination of the subject that such is in fact the
case.
Recurring, then, to the words of Scripture, we find
here, first, three classes of vegetation enumerated as
the second work of the third day. The earth is com-
manded to bring forth, first, grass ; second, the herb
yielding seed ; thirdly, the fruit-tree yielding fruit after
his kind, whose seed is in itself. As to the first pro-
duction, grass, there is added a marginal note intimat-
ing that the more exact rendering of the Hebrew is
tender grass. Gesenius, however, tells us that the pri-

mary signification of the word deshe, here translated
grass, is from the earth." The verb
" the first shoots
daushau means " to shoot forth." Consequently, the

noun deshe, derived from it, must mean literally, some-
thing shot forth, "a shooting" ; or, as Gesenius says, "a
first shoot." Accordingly, he also renders it, "tender
THIRD DAY. 75
herbage." It is not necessary, therefore, to look for

"^r6i!ss"as the first of vegetable creations, much less
for such advanced grasses as now grow upon the earth,

clover, orchard grass, timothy, and the like. Tender
herbage of any kind, and however simple, will suffi-
ciently correspond to the word deshe. Secondly, the
Scriptures speak of both the herbs of this period, and
also of the trees as bearing seed. But it makes a dis-
tinction as to the kinds of seed produced by the herb

and the tree. It tells us of the herb, simply that it
yielded seed. But of the tree it tells us that it yielded

fruitwhose seed is in itself; that is, in the fruit. It
would appear, therefore, that there was this difference
between the seed of the herb and of the tree. That in
the one there was to be seed without fruit, and con-
sequently which was yiot in a fruit; whereas, in the
other there was to be fruit with seed in it. But it
will be asked. Is there now any such distinction in
vegetable productions, as plants which bear seed with-
out fruit, and others which bear fruit with seed in the
fruit? We answer, this distinction does now exist. It
marks the two great divisions of plants known as cryp-
togams and phenogams. Cryptogams are, as the name
implies, plants which have the organs of fruitfulness con-
cealed. Of this sort are ferns, ground pines, horse-tails,
and some others. These yield the naked seed only,
seed which are commonly called, "spores"; and although
[
entirely different from all our ordinary seed, in being
altogether without that fleshy matter which we find
in almost all kinds of garden seed, and seeds of fruit-
trees, still they are really seed, inasmuch as from them

the plant is propagated. But almost all our ordinary
I I
plants are phenogams; that is, plants whose organs of
fruitfulness are apparent. But are there among pheno-

gams trees yielding fruit whose seed is in the fruits
There are many such. This is the case with all that
bear nuts of whatever kind,
the walnut, hickory, chest-
nut, almond, hazel-nut, and the like. For, in the first
place, walnuts, hickory-nuts, chestnuts, etc., are as truly
fruit as are apples, peaches, and pears, and are as truly
nourishing as food. And, in the second place, they are
fruits whose seed is in them. For the whole walnut, the
whole chestnut is not seed. No ; it is the little germ
which they contain, which, properly speaking, consti-
tutes the seed. And as this germ is imbedded in the
fleshy matter of the nut, therefore it is that all trees
which bear nuts are whose seed is
trees yielding fruit
in the fruit. Peach, plum, and cherry trees, and also
apple, pear, quince, and similar trees, have a double fruit-
age the outer fleshy matter of the peach and apple, as
;
well as the fleshy matter inside the nut of the peach,

and what we commonly call the " seed " of the apple.
Fruit-trees of this advanced type, it is not necessary to

look for among the trees of the third day. But what
we are to look for, is, beside tender herbage, herbs
proper, bushes or vines having spores for seeds ; and
full-grown trees, somewhat of the type of the walnut
and hickory with fruit whose seed is in the fruit.
Thirdly, we note a distinct order in these three classes
of vegetable productions, namely : first, grass ; second,
herbs ; third, trees. We have, then, three facts indi-
cated by the Scriptures as to the second work of the
third day. First, during this period, the earth was to
be clothed with vegetation of three kinds, grass, or
THIRD DAY. 77
tender herbage, herbs proper, and fruit-trees. Secondly,

the lierbs were to be of the class of cryptogams, yield-
mg no fruit, but seed only ; that is, spores : whereas
the trees were to yield fruit whose seed should be m
the fruit. Thirdly, the appearance of these three classes
of vegetation was to be in the following order : first,
grass, or tender herbage ; second, herbs ; third, trees.

Let us now turn to the geological record and see
whether or not it confirms the Scriptural statements.
Did grass, or tender herbage, herbs, and trees appear
for the first time during this third day of Scripture?
They did. Geologists affirm distinctly that before this
time the only plants that grew on this earth were
marine plants. But at the end of the Devonian period,
that is, the close of the third day, there were not only
a " green sward " upon the ground, and an abundance
of herbs, but that the lands were covered with forest
trees. Secondly, Were the vegetable productions of
the earth at that day divided into those two classes, of
herbs bearing seed only, that is, cryptogams and fruit- ;
trees with fruit whose seed was in the fruit? They

were. For a long time, even to the end of the Silurian
Age, and perhaps afterwards, cryptogams were the only
kinds of plants in existence. There were no trees in
the Silurian Age, but there were small herbaceous plants
of various kinds, and without exception they were cryp-
togams; that is, herbs yielding seed. In the Devonian
Age, however, fruit-trees appeared of two classes they :
were lepidodendrids, that is, trees marked with scales

on their bark and conifers, that is, trees allied to our
;
modern spruces and pines. Botli of these classes of

trees bore fruit. And the fruit was such as had its
;
seed in itself. In both instances it was a nut; and in

the case of the conifers, a nut of considerable size.
Thirdly, according to the Scriptural statement, we

would infer that the following order was to be ob-
served: first, tender herbage was to make its appear-
ance secondly, herbs thirdly, fruit-trees.
; ; Does Geol-
ogy teach that they were brought forth by the earth
in this order? In so far as the grass is concerned,
in this instance only in the whole account of the crea-
tion the evidence of Geolog}^ as to what appears to be
the Scriptural order is ]iot positive^ but of a probable
nature only. Dana declares that "the lands, accord-
ing to present evidence, had no green sward over the
rocks, except during the closing part of the Silurian
Age "; whereas it appears that "a very few land plants
(ferns and club-mosses) have been detected as early as
the middle Silurian."
So far as positive evidence goes, the herb appears be-
fore the green herbage, at the middle of the Silurian

whereas the herbage is not positively known before the
close of the age. Still, Geology gives several probable
arguments for the prior creation of the herbage. The

first is an analogical argument, namely, that in crea-
tion generally, and in this age in particular, there is in

the main a gradual advance from the lower to the
higher orders of existences. In the Archaean Era we
have only the lowest forms of life. In the Paleozoic
we have higher forms, and in the Devonian Age fish ap-
pear. In the Mesozoic we find reptiles in the Ceno- ;
zoic, mammals and finally, man. So, in this third day,

;
we have unquestionably herbs before trees. It is, there-

fore, most in accordance with what Geology informs us
THIRD DA Y. 79
as to God's plan in creation, to believe that the tender

herbage, the lowest form of vegetable life, was created
before the higher form of herbs, as they both preceded
trees. But there have also been found carbonaceous
shales of the early Silurian, which proves positively
that some kind of vegetable life existed on the land at
that period. The fact that the impression of the plant
is so feeble that its precise nature cannot be ascertained,
is more favorable to the idea that it was tender herbage
than any other kind, since it, owing to its
of all kinds,
fragile nature, is least likely to make a distinct impres-
sion. But, after all, it must not be forgotten that, ac-
cording to the universal testimony of geologists, Geology
knows almost nothing about the vegetation of that early
age, and but Very little concerning the vegetation of
any age. Plants have no bony structure like animals,
and therefore are not preserved as animals are. Of the
myriads of kinds of plants which it is universally agreed
must have existed in early times, only some two thou-
sand five hundred to three thousand have been found
in the fossil state. Dana thinks that these are not more
than as one in a thousand of the plants that have ex-
isted. The wonder is, therefore, that Geology should
have told us of the existence of anything so frail as
tender herbage at so early a period as the close of the
Silurian Age. Its lack ofany positive testimony as to
its appearance before that time is no evidence whatever
of its non-existence before that time. It would 7iot have

been strange if Geology had preserved no record of the
existence of the herb before the fruit-tree. Still it has^
in the providence of God, preserved that record most
distinctly. For, whereas the herb has been discovered
about the middle Silurian, no tree of any kind was

found before the Devonian Age. But, as we have
already stated, there were lepidodendrids and conifers,
fruit-treeswhose seed are in themselves, found in con-
siderable numbers during the Devonian.
And now I ask in conclusion that you will look back
upon the work of the' first three days, and consider
whether there is the slightest contradiction between the
Scriptural and geological records. The Scriptural rec-
ord goes beyond the geological ; but it harmonizes per-
fectly with Astronomy and every other branch of natural
science bearing on the subject.
But when it comes within the scope of Geology, it
harmonizes perfectly and in a variety of particulars
with the geological record, wherever that record is clear
and full. I have in a previous lecture noted this har-
mony as to the work But I ask,
of the first day.
I. Is it not a wonderful thing that Moses should in-
form us that the atmosphere, although created in the he-
ginniîg, yet was not formed until the second day or
period? And have we not shown you that it was impos-
sible for the atmosphere to have existed, separate from
the vapory mass, until long ages after the time when
darkness first began to reign upon the deep ?
II. And is it not certain that it mîst have been
formed exactly at this time? For since it could not

have been formed on the first day, owing to the agitated
state of the vapory atmosphere and since it must have
;
been formed before the third day, since land vegetation

then existed which could not have lived without air,
therefore it follows conclnsively that it must have been
formed at the time the Scripture says it was, namely.
THIRD DAY. 81
between the first and third days; that is, on the second
day.
III. Is it not wonderful that Moses should have as-
signed a whole day^ or geological period^ to the forma-

tion of the atmosphere, so simple a thing as it is? And
has it not been shown you that it must 7iecessarily have
consumed an immense period before the commotion of
the engirding vapor could have sufficiently subsided to
allow of the fixed settling of the atmospheric air and
carbonic acid gas/rom the vapor?
IV. Is it not remarkable that Moses should have
spoken of the atmosphere as being in the midst of the
waters, and as separating the waters which were under
the firmament from the waters which were above the
firmament, in apparefit contradiction to the common
reason of every man, which tells him that the atmos-
phere is not in the midst of the waters, that there are
no waters above the firmament to separate from those

below and yet that it should turn out that at the time
;
of which Moses wrote there must have been fully as

much water above the firmament as there was below it,
and that the firmament did lie directly between these
masses of water separating them from each other ?
V. Is it not wonderful that Geology and Moses
should concur in affirming that the first land was formed
under the water, and that it was lifted up out of the
water ?
VI. Is it not wonderful that they should concur in
affirming that there was one grand era of continent-
making, and hut one that channels and a bed were
;
then assigned to the ocean, and that bounds were then

set to the whelming which from that day to this

tiood
it has never passed I mean
for any length of time ?
VII. Is it not wonderful that Scripture and Geology
should concur as to the different kinds of plants of that
period? Is it not wonderful that Moses should have
distinguished minutely between the kinds of seed which
those plants should bear, and should inform us that in
the latter part of the third day there should be trees
with fruit, whose seed was in the fruit; whereas previ-
ously there were apparently to be onl}^ herbs, small her-
baceous plants, with seed onli/; that is, with spores?
And do we not see in the geological record (another
book of the same God who inspired Moses) a spreading
before our minds of the sa?ne facts? Is there, then, con-
tradiction in all this ? Is there not harmony/, wonderful
harmony? A harmony so wonderful as to compel us
to acknowledge that so far, at least, the first chapter of
the Book of Genesis does not appear to contain the
speculations of an impostor, but to be the inspired
record of the all-wise God ?
Lectuee IY.
PART I.
FOURTH DAY. GEN. I. 14-19.
WE have now
This, I will
reached the fourth day, or period.
remind you, is the latter part of
the Palceozoic Era, the second era of geologists. That
part of the Palaeozoic Era which corresponds to the
fourth day of the Scriptures is the last of its three ages,
and is known as the Carboniferous Age. This is the time
when the great coal beds of the earth were formed.
While, therefore, geologists turn our eyes down to the
bowels of the earth to contemplate the wonders wrought
therein, the Scriptures lift wp our eyes to the heavens
to behold the wonders there performed. And although
not a word is said in Scripture in regard to the formation
of coal, yet I think we shall see before the close of our
remarks on the work of the fourth day, that there is
good reason to believe that there is an intimate connec-
tion between the coal formation and the work performed
on the heavenly bodies; and that the coal formation
was one principal cause of the work wrought on the
heavenly bodies.
What was the work of the fourth day ? I will repeat
it from the Scriptures, because in our discussion of the
text we cannot have that text too vividly impressed

upon our minds. It reads thus :

''
And God said, Let
there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide
the day from the night ; and let them be for signs, and
for seasons, and for days, and years and let them be :
for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light

upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two
great lights ; the greater light to rule the day, and the
lesser light to rule the night he made the stars also.
:
And God them in the firmament of the heaven to

set
give light upon the earth, And to rule over the day
and over the night, and to divide the light from the
darkness and God saw that it was good. And the
:
evening and the morning were the fourth day."

You perceive that we are here told that God had a
threefold object in view, namely first, to divide be- :
tween the day and the night secondly, to have fixed ;
seasons, days, and years and thirdly, to have this world

;
duly illuminated both by day and by night. Having

these objects in view, he sent forth his fiat for lumina-
ries to fulfil his will. Accordingly he made three
lights, or orders of lights, the sun, the moon, and the
stars, and set them in the firmament of the heaven to
accomplish the purposes for which they were made.
But here has ever been a great wonder among
theologians, commentators upon Holy Scripture, and
others. What, say they, does this mean? We are told
that light was formed on the first day, and yet here we
are informed that the luminaries (which give light) were
not formed until the fourth day! Again they say: Can
it be possible that the sun and all the vast assemblage
of immense worlds on liigh were not created until after
this tiny earth was made, and then created mainl}^ to
FOURTH DAY. 85
serve itf Here is, indeed (as tbey view it), a great
niysteiy. But is there no way of solving it? I answer,
There is. It is this : that the work of this fourth day
has nothing whatever to do with the creation (properly
so called) of thesun or moon, or any other of the heav-
enly bodies. For do not the very first words of this
chapter declare very distinctly and positively that the
creation of both the heavens and the earth took place
long before this? that " in the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth " ? that is, that the creation of
the heavens as well as of the earth, was the very first
work which God performed ? And hence it necessarily

follows that either this took place before the first day, or
was
else the very first work of the first day ? Since, then,
Moses tells us that God created them on or before the
first day, how is it possible that he can be speaking
of their creation on the fou^^th day ? But it may be
said, Does not he say distinctly in referring to the work
of the fourth day, that God nfiade two great lights ? I
answer. It is very true that it is said that he made
them but it is not said that he created
; them. The
word here translated " made " is not baurau^ which
means " created," but ^wawsai^, which, although of very
frequent occurrence, never is translated " created " from
the beginning of the Scripture to the end of it. It is
repeatedly translated " made " as in the text. But our
English word " made " hardly ever means " to create." A
very common meaning of it is " to prepare for use." As,
for example, we speak of making Q\ot\iQ^ and mean ; that
we take cloth, already made, and prepare it for nse as a
garment. We speak of making breads meaning that we
prepare flour for use as food. But the word gnausau
;
here translated " made ''

is translated ''
dressed " no less
than fourteen times in the Scripture. As, for example,
when it is said of Abraham, that he "ran unto the
herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave it
unto a young man; and he hasted to dress it. And he

took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had dressed^
and set it before them." But what is meant by dress-
ing the calf ? It is preparing the calf for use as food
and so it is in the other cases. But one of the most
common of all translations of the word gnausau is
" prepared." It is so translated not less than thirty-two
times. Thus it isRebecca when she sent Jacob
said of
to Isaac with kid meat for venison, that " she gave the
savory meat and the bread which she had prepared^ into
the hand of her son Jacob." And so it is in thirty-one
other cases in the Old Testament. There is, then, abun-
dant reason for understanding the words " God made
two great lights," not in the sense of creating them on
the fourth day, but as j9r6'|?arw?^ them as getting them ;
ready to he lights on that day.

But it may be asked. If these lights, the sun, the
moon, and the had been already in existence for
stars,
an immense period of time, how was it that they were

made ready (or p)repared') to fulfil the three purposes
which, according to Scripture, they first were enabled
to fulfilon the fourth day ? Before I answer this ques-
tion let me recall to your minds distinctly what these
three purposes were. The first was, to divide the day
from the night. The second was, to serve as signs of
the seasons, days, and years. The third was, to give
light upon the earth, so that the sun should be the ruler
of the day, and the moon the ruler of the night. And
FOURTH DAY. 87
now for the answer. And first I say, it is very easy to

see how it was that the sun, moon, and stars, although
in existence for so long a time, yet did not fulfil these
three purposes before that time. It was because they
were prevented from doing so by the vast envelope of
uncondensed vapor which enshrouded this entire globe,
and to which I have so repeatedly referred hitherto.
At the close of this fourth day, however, there was no
loyiger so much vapor to obscure the heavenly bodies.
The causes which had hitherto operated to condense the

vapor still operated, and in an intefisified degree, as the
earth was all the while gradually growing cooler. And
besides, I am well assured that another agent, of which
I shall soon speak, also began to operate with vast
power to diminish the mass of overhanging vapor, and
to make the heavenly bodies occasionally., and for the
first time, visible to the inhabitants of the world at that
period. And thus you see that the preparation of the
heavenly bodies consisted in the removal of the vapors
to that degree that they no longer completely shut out
the heavenly bodies from view, as they had always done
hitherto. When this result was achieved^ then (ând not
before^ the sun, moon, and stars did subserve the three
purposes for which God had prepared them, by taking
off the mask of vapor from their faces. Then, for the
first time, they began with some degree of regularity to
fulfil the first purpose mentioned, which was to divide
the day from the night. In the first day we are told,
not that the heavenly bodies, but that G-od^ divided the
day from the night. Then there was no regularity in
the recurrence of day and night. So thick was the
vapor then that in all probability there would only be
an occasional day. I myself have a recollection of two

days which, during a portion of them, were so dark
that it almost appeared like night. One occurred last
winter, when it became necessary to breakfast by can-
dle-light, in a well lighted room, sometime after sunrise.
And if this can happen in the prese7it state of the atmos-
phere, we may well believe that in early periods daylight
was only occasional, and lasted only for a few hours, or
even minutes, at a time. It would gradually, however,
become more frequent and of longer duration. But we
can well understand how irregular these periods of day-
light must have been for many long ages, depending
upon providential rifts in the vapors above for their
occurrence and no doubt at times, when the moon was
;
full and the clouds thinner than usual, the light would
be that of the moon, yet so undistinguishable from that

of the sun that it could not be known whether it was
night or day. But at the close of the fourth day the sun
had, to an extent unknown before, become ruler of the
day, and the moon ruler of the night. And thus to-
gether they served v/ith some degree of defiiiiteness to
divide the day from the night.

But there was a second purpose which they then, for
the first time, began to fulfil. They on the fourth day
(and not before') served "for signs, and for seasons, and
for days, and years." The meaning of these words is
somewhat obscure. It is difficult to attach any distinct
meaning to them. The Hebrew word vav, translated
"and" here, does not always mean "and"; although that
is its usual meaning. Gesenius understands the expres-
sion "signs and seasons" in this particular instance, to
which he refers in his dictionary, to mean "signs of
FOURTH DAY. 89
seasons." And up the meaning very consid-

this clears
erably. But what does " seasons "
mean ? The word
mognad^ here translated " seasons," means (radically)
something definite. As applied to places^ as it some-
times is, it means a fixed place for assembly, as the
tabernacle of the congregation, or the synagogue. As
applied to time^ it means a definite, fixed time. So
Gresenius says, and so I could easily shozv by numer-
ous examples. And as the word vav frequently means
"even," I can only understand the passage we are
considering as signifying that the second purpose for
which God prepared the lights in heaven was that they
might serve as signs of fixed, definite periods, namely,
of days and of years. That is to say, before this time
there was nothing definite about the length of days and
of years. Now we know that the day and night to-
gether are twenty-four hours long. We can now tell
to the very second the length of each day and of each

night in the whole year. We can tell, moreover, pre-
cisely how long a i/ear is, and exactly when each year
begins and ends. And it is difficult for us to realize
that it ever could have been otherwise. it was/ar
But
otherwise in early times. The great prevalence of
uiists and vapors prevented the creatures then in exis-
tence from understanding as definitely about those mat-
ters as animals of like grade do at present. But as the
time was approaching when God was about to create
vast numbers of animals whose convenience and com-
fort would be very greatly enhanced by the regular
recurrence of day and night, and by the observance of
certain seasons of the year (as for example birds of pas-
sage now do) therefore it was that God so prepared
;
the heavenly bodies, that they should serve to the

animals as signs of definite days and years.
But the third purpose for which God prepared the
heavenly bodies was to give light upon the earth in a
degree they had never given it hitherto. As I have
just remarked, God was about to fill the world with
animals that would 7ieed light ; the wâters, the air, the
land, was to be filled with them. They would not be
the eyeless animals which to so great a degree had
hitherto prevailed. But animals ivith eyes, that would
need the light of the sun by day for their convenience,
and the light of the moon by night and therefore God
;
so prepared the heavenly bodies for them as to give them

a measure of light which the inhabitants of the earth
had not hitherto received from them.
And thus you see how it was, that although the
heavenly bodies were created in the beginning, and had
long given some light to the earth, yet it was not until
the fourth day that the clearing off of the mists had
reached such an extent as to enable them regularly to
divide the day from the night, to give definiteness to
the length of days and of years, and to give that meas-
ure of light to the creatures about to be created, which
the creatures of the past had not needed. You see,
moreover, that Moses does not speak of the existence of

light upon the earth before there was a luminary.
Neither does he teach us that the heavenly bodies were
created after this little world, and chiefly for the purpose
of giving light to it.
But T cannot leave this part of the subject before

adverting briefly to the observance of that order in the
occurrence of the events of this dav which I have noted
FOURTH DAY. 91
in the occurrences of other days. First, then, Moses

does not say that God prepared the stars, the moon,
and the sun But he mentions the greater
to be lights.
light first, light, and lastly the stars.
then the lesser
This, you will perceive, was the natural order. Because
the light of the sun, being so immensely more powerful
than that of the other bodies, would first become con-
spicuous next, the moon would become visible
; last ;
of all, the dimmer light of the stars would habitually be

seen. Again, Moses represents days as being definitely
defined before years. This also is the natural order.
For men (after they were created) soon found out the
length of the days ; but, unless the builders of the great
pyramid were an exception, they were nearly four thou-
sand years in finding out the exact length of a year.
Indeed, it could not be known, even to me?2, until the
starry heavens were in full view, and the constellations
of the ecliptic could be observed.
Another matter to be noted here is the meaning of
the word "set" in verse 17, where it is said, "And God
set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light
upon the earth." Our English word " set " has a variety
of meanings, and is therefore ambiguous. If I say, " I
set the chair in its place," I have a reference to locality
to the location of the chair. But Such a man
if I say, "
is '
set ' meaning is entirely different.
in his ways," the
It is that the man is fixed and settled in his habits.
But the Hebrew word yautan^ of which " set " is the
translation in verse 17, is not ambiguous. It has no ref-
erence to location whatever. It means, in general, "to

be perennial, to flow constantly as water, to be con-
stant, permanent." Gesenius says, " The primary idea
seems to be that of extending^'; consequently, in verse

17, the meaning evidently is, that God made it the per-
manent office of the sun, moon, and stars in the heavens
to give light upon the earth. So that the meaning of the

whole passage is, not that God created the heavenly
bodies to be lights, and located them in the heavens, but
that he prepared^ for certain offices, heavenly bodies
which had already been created, and made it thence-
forth their permanent duty to continue to fulfil those
offices. And this they have done from that day to this,
to the unspeakable comfort, not only of mankind,
but of innumerable other animals living upon this
globe.
I have said that Geology knows nothing, and cannot
possibly know anything, of the work wrought by God
upon the earth's vapory envelope during the fourth day,
inasmuch as it takes cognizance only of changes in the
denê body of the globe, and in the living creatures
which existed upon it. I have stated also that this
fourth day of Scripture is the latter part of the Palseo-
zoic Era of geologists, and is known by them as the
Qarhoniferous Age. Geologically, it is one of the most
notable of all the periods ; for it is computed that nine-
tenths of all the coal that now was
exists in the earth
formed during this period. But I wish to show you the
connection between the forming of this coal and the
diminishing of the vapory envelope of the earth. We
say, tlierefore That coal is of vegetable origin is now
:
universally understood. Trees and vegetable growth

of all kinds accumulated for a long time in the luxu-
riant marshes, jungles, and forests of the Carboniferous
Era, until vegetable matter of many feet in depth over-
FOURTH DAY. 93
spread the whole surface of the ground, and that, too,

over immeyise areas. By a gradual subsidence of the
earth, this vegetablemass was sunk beneath the ocean's
waves. There, rocks were formed upon
it by settlings
from the waters. In the lapse of ages those rocks were

elevated again upon the surface, to become land, and
receive fresh vegetable deposits. New jungles and for-
ests were formed. By and by these again sank beneath
the waters and thus, by successive risings and sinkings
;
of the earth, numbers of beds of coal, witii intervening

rocks, were formed. This is the explanation geologists
give of the formation of coal, and it is the only intelli-
gible explanation of it that I have ever seen.
The seams of coal vary from one to ten feet in thick-
ness, and in one instance (the mammoth vein in Penn-
sylvania) to forty feet in thickness. All together, their
thicknes's in some localities amounts to some one hundred
and fifty feet. But we must not suppose that this was
the entire thickness of the vegetable beds out of which
the coal was formed. They were compacted in some
instances by the weight of miles of rock. It is evident,
therefore, that the growth of vegetation was exceedingly
rank during this period. And it is agreed among geolo-
gists that this is due mainly to three causes namely, :
the warmth of the climate, the humidity of the atmos-

phere, and the immense amount of carbonic acid gas
that the atmosphere contained. As coal, and the trees
out of which the coal was formed, consist chiefly of car-
bon, and inasmuch as trees derive their carbon mainly
from the atmosphere by inhaling carbonic acid gas, the
immense coal beds of the world, one hundred and fifty
solid feet in thickness, show what a vast amount of car-
boiiic acid gas was extracted by vegetable growth from

the atmosphere during the Carboniferous Era.
But geologists are of the opinion, and expressly affirm,
that the rank growth of this period is due
in great part
also to the huinldity of the atmosphere which, they say,
characterized this age. And this I wish you particularly
to note, because it is this fact especially namely, that
moisture contributes to vegetable growth which con-
nects the geological formations of this age with the
removi7ig of moisture from the atmosphere, and so dimin-
ishing the volume of the engirding vapor as to make the
sun, moon, and stars visible. Dana (page 136), speaking
of the causes that promoted the growth of vegetation in
the Carboniferous. Era, says " The atmosphere was more
:
moist than now. It must," says he, " have been an era
of prevailing clouds and mists." In like manner, Le
Conte (381-2) mentions the moisture of the atmosphere
of the period as a physical condition extremely favorable
to vegetation. But ivhy do clouds and mists so favor
vegetation? Must it not be because plants imbibe
moisture from the atmosphere through their leaves, and
perhaps also through their bark? Is it not a fact that
all plants of the garden and of the field are greatly re-
vived by the dews which fall upon their surface during
the night? These dews scarce reach the roots of the

plants. Is it not plain, then, that they drink it in over
their whole surface ?
Ladies are familiar with the fact, that when their

bouquets of flowers begin to wilt, they are revived by
spi'inkling water over them. This proves conclusively
that the water enters through their surface. Humboldt
maintains that trees extract moisture from the atmos-
FOURTH DAY. 95
phere by means of tlieir leaves, even when there is

neither rain nor dew. He says :
" The agreeable and
fresh verdure which is observed in many trees in dis-
tricts witiiin the tropics, where for five or seven months
of the year not a cloud is seen on the vault of heaven,
and where no perceptible dew or rain falls, proves that
the leaves are capable of extracting water from the
atmosphere by a peculiar vital process of their own."
The imbibing power of the leaves of trees, Humboldt
regards as demonstrated. And certainly the refreshing
of plants by the dews of night, and the reviving of flow-
ers by sprinkling them, seems to me to be also a demon-
stration of it. But this being so, we see very clearly
how was that a vast diminution in the mass of the
it
vapor that surrounded the earth must have taken place

in the Carboniferous Age, or fourth day of Scripture,
through the agency of the vegetation of that age, and
so contributed to the partial removal of that vaporous
mash which hitherto had completely hidden from the
view of earth's creatures the faces of the sun, of the
moon, and of the stars. Because every tree, every bush,
every blade ot grass, in that age of mists and of moisture,
instead of drinking water mainly from the ground by
means of its roots, would take in a great part of its
moisture, perhaps the greater part, from the surrounding
atmosphere, and converting it into water, would, by the
descent of the sap, discharge it into the ground. And
when we take into consideration these facts, first, that
the vegetation of the day was of a hind tliat required
more than the usual amount of moisture to sustain it;
secondly, that of all periods since the earth was formed
this was the period of the rankest and most abundant
vegetation ; thirdly, that the whole landed surface of

the earth was covered with forests, as there were then
no men to clear the land fourthly, that it was a period
;
ofimmense duration, probably of more than one million

of years, wq say when we consider these facts, we
can clearly perceive what an immense draught was
made upon the watery envelope of the globe by the
vegetation of the Carboniferous Age. We can see how
the work which geologists describe as being wrought at
this time upon the earth, becomes a chief cause of that
work which the Scriptures declare was at the same time
wrought in the heavens. And thus, instead of a clash-
ing of the Scriptural and geological records, we find a
most wonderful and unexpected coincidence.
PART II.
FIFTH DAY. GEN. I. 20-23.
WE tures.
have now day of the Scrip-
reached the fifth
Hitherto the Scriptural record has been

more full than the geological. Both Scripture and
Geology tell us of the plants of the third day of the
Scriptures, the second geological era but the Scripture ;
alone tells us of the making the atmosphere on

work of
the second day, and without which plants could not
exist.
Both Scripture and Geology tell us of the wonderful
animals created upon the fifth and sixth days of Scrip-

ture ; that is, the third and fourth eras of Geology.
But the Scripture goes heyond Geology, in that it tells
us on the fourth day, of that preparation of the lights

of heaven their beams caused all animated
which by
creatures to rejoice and which, by producing a regular
;
division of day and night, and a regular succession of

definite periods of time, were essential to the well-being
of the new population, which was to swarm in the
waters, in the air, and upon the laud.
The fifth day of Scripture coincides perfectly with the
third era of geologists. This third era is called by them
the Mesozoic Era, or the era of middle life. The former
era was closed by great convulsions of the earth. On
our own Atlantic coast some seven or eight miles of rock
:
were heaved up from the depths below, and the Appa-

lachian chains of mountains were formed. Other monn-
tain chains were lifted up in other parts of the world,
and (as is usual at the close of each era) all pre-existing
species of plants and animals (so far as is known) were
destroyed. But the Creator entered upon the labor of
another day. In addition to the creation of creatures
akin to those of the previous period, he called for new
and higher forms of life both in the animal and in the
vegetable world. We
had an account of the origin
of life he-neath the tvaters on thefirst day. We had an
account of the origin of vegetable life on the lajid on the
third day. But on the fifth day a neiv species of life
appears. We have living beings formed which inhale
the atmosphere, and bask in the beams of the sun, as
well as inhabit the waters, or sojourn upon the land.
We have the Scriptural account in Genesis i. 20-23.
Let us observe it very carefully " And God said, Let
:
the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature

that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in
the open firmament of heaven. And God created great
whales, and every living. creature that moveth, which the
waters brought forth abundantly after their kind, and
every winged fowl after his kind; and God saw that it
was good. And God blessed them, saying. Be fruitful, and
multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl
multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morn-
ing were the fifth day." You will observe that there
are here two classes of creatures formed on this day

one class was to have its home mainly in the tvaters;
the other \Yas fowls, which should fly in the air. Let us
examine what is said of the water animals first, and
FIFTH DAY. 99
afterward what is said of i\iQ foivls. First, observe that

there ivere water animals, or, at least, there were to be
animals which should be brought forth by the waters.
" God said. Let the ivaters bring forth abundantly the
moving creature." Observe, secondly, that these crea-
tures which the waters were to bring forth were to be
reptiles, I am aware that the text of Scripture does not
say so, but the marginal translation does., and reads

" creeping " instead of " moving." And here let me say
that I would not on any account say aught to impair
that profound reverence which we all ought to entertain
for the Word of God. Neither am I willing unnecessarily
to impair that confidence which we rightly have in our
authorized English version of the Scriptures, which is
perhaps the best version that we ever have had, or are
soon likely to have. Still we must distinguish between
the Scriptures themselves, which are of Divine origin,

and therefore infallible, and the translation of them,
which is human, and therefore liable to error. It is a
fact well known to all who have ever attempted to
translate from one language to another, that a knowl-
edge of the subject of which the author treats is indis-
pensable to the translator, and that a misconception as
to what he intends to say will lead to errors in transla-
tion. The translators of Genesis i. have labored under
this great difficulty, that they did not understand the
process of the creation of the world, and therefore have
not always given the correct rendering of the Hebrew.
This is particularly conspicuous in their translation of
the work of the fifth day. What was more natural than
that they should suppose that the account given by
Moses of what the waters brought forth on that day
should be an account of the creation of fish ! But, in

fact, fish liad been created long before, in the Devonian
age of the Palaeozoic Era. And Moses says not one
word about fish. He speaks of reptiles and birds only.
To make him speak of fish, the Hebrew is strained from
its plain meaning. Thus, in translating the passage we
are considering in verse 20, the translators were aware
that they were not giving a literal translation of the
Hebrew, and evidently supposing that this was an
account of the creation of fish (which it was not), and
not understanding how the motion of fish could be de-
scribed as "creeping," they substituted "moving" in
place of But any Hebrew dictionary will tell you
it.
that the word sherets^ here translated " moving," ordi-

narily means a creeping or crawling thing, a reptile.
The word sherets occurs repeatedly in Scripture, and is
always translated " creeping," so far as I can discern,
except on one other occasion, in Leviticus xi. 10, when it
is again translated " moving." In the twentieth verse,

God commands the waters to bring forth these reptiles.
In the twenty-first verse, the reptiles are spoken of as
already created. Our translation here reads, " God cre-
ated great whales, and every living creature that mov-
ethy Here the word translated " moveth " is not sherets.^
but raumas. But Gesenius gives no other meaning to
raumas but that of crawling or creeping; so that, how-
ever, on some rare occasions these words may mean
moving, yet this is not their ordinary meaning. If you
will refer to a Concordance for the places in which the
words " creeping," " creep," and the like, occur in our
English translation, and then refer to the original word
in the Hebrew text, you will find that in every instance^
FIFTH DAY. 101
if a verb, it is raumas or shaurats ; or, if a noun,

either
it is either the noun remes or sherets. Unquestionably,
therefore, the creatures that the waters were to bring
forth were to be, not moving, but creeping, things or
reptiles.
Our translation speaks of these reptiles as creatures
that have life. " Let the waters bring forth the moving
creature, that hath life.''' The words translated " creature
that hath life " are in the original Hebrew, Nephesh hay-
yau. Here the translators show how puzzled they are,
by inserting another marginal translation, substituting
"living soul" for "creature that hath life." Indeed,
in thisone verse they have four marginal translations,
showing how embarrassed they are in discovering the
true meaning of the original Hebrew text. And it is
no wonder. It is nothing against the general correct-
ness of the translation. But in the opinion of those
two most eminent Hebraists, Gesenius, the author of
the standard Hebrew Lexicon, and Young, the very
learned author of the most valuable concordance in
existence, as well as the author of a literal translation
of the Old Testament ; in the opinion of these most
eminent scholars, I say, the word nephesh here indicates
azV-breathing animals. The verb naiiphash means to
breathe ; and so the root meaning of the noun nephesh is
breath. Gesenius expressly declares that in -this par-
ticular instance, as also in verse 30, the true mean-
ing of Nephesh haiyau life.
is So that
the breath of
the passage thus rendered would be, " Let the waters
bring forth abundantly the reptile that hath the breath
of life." According to Young it would be, "Let the
waters bring forth abundantly the breathing creature
that hath Although the word nephesh is of

life."
very frequent occurrence, and is variously translated,

yet after the examination of a large number of instances
where it is used (about four hundred and fifty), I have
never found it applied to any but an <2i>-breathing ani-
mal, and almost universally to human beings ; although
it unquestionably refers to inferior animals in this chap-
ter. The waters, therefore, clearly, were commanded to
bring forth abundantly air-hreatking reptiles. And I
will callyour attention, /(^wr^/^?^, to this fact, that these
creatures were to be very numerous. " Let the waters
bring forth abundantly the crawling, or creeping thing."
"
The word in the original for " bring forth
abundantly
is the future tense of the verb shaurats^ which cor-
responds to the noun sherets. A literal translation
wôuld be, " Let the waters crawl with the crawling
thing," implying how great was to be the abundance
of these animals. And this idea of abundance is re-
peated in the twenty-first verse, where we are told that

the waters did bring forth these reptiles abundantly.
But it is again repeated, in the twenty-second verse,
that "God blessed them, saying. Be fruitful, and multi-
ply, and fill the waters in the seas." This evidently
implies that, on the fifth day, the waters were to swarm
with reptiles.
In the twenty-first verse we are told that some of
these creatures were to be of vast size. Our translation
says, "And God created great whales." It was very
natural that this should be the translation of those who
thought that Moses was speaking about fish ; inasmuch
as the whale is the largest of fish. But the twentieth
verse declares that these animals which the sea brought
;
FIFTH DAY. 103
forth were reptiles^ not fish, and the whale is not a rep-
tile. The Hebrew word, here translated whales, is tan-
neenim. It is of frequent occurrence in Scripture. It
is translated " whale " on two other occasions only ; but I
suppose the translators must have thought themselves
justified in translating it "whale," because that seemed to
them to be its meaning in the passage we are considering.
On one other occasion it is three times translated " ser-
pent." On all others, it is rendered " dragon." It is
a great puzzle to lexicographers. Gesenius gives it three
meanings : first, a water-serpent, sea-monster, dragon
second, a land-serpent, dragon ; third, a crocodile (not
whale). But what a would be difficult for
dragon is, it
any one to explain. The root meaning of the word

tanneen is a long animal, from taunan^ which means to
extend. And one thing is very certain, and evident to
any one who will be at the pains to examine, that the
animal into which Moses' rod was turned is called both
Nahash (which ordinarily means serpent), and also tan-
neen. This would seem to imply that tanneen some-
times means a serpent ; which is a long animal. It is
clear, too, that on four other occasions, once in the
Psalms, Ixxiv. 13, twice in Isaiah, xxvii. 1, li. 9, and once
in Ezekiel, xxix. 3, it means a crocodile, which is also a
long animal. It is still further certain that tanneen is
a name applied both to animals living on the land and

in the water, and therefore is not a whale. Tanneenim
are in various places represented as having hard heads,
and being difficult to kill (as for example, the croco-
dile); also as crying, as snuffing up the wind, as dwell-
ing in the ruins of cities, as being long animals, as
being poisonous, and as biting. But there is no animal
;
that seems to fill all these conditions except the lizard
kind. But this cannot be doubted, that all authority

proves that the crocodile or lizard kind, and the serpent
together^ will answer to every peculiarity of the tanneen
of Scripture and therefore those great tanneenim of
;
the fifth day were large animals either of the serpent or

crocodilian character. But if serpents, they must be
reptile serpents as well as swimming serpents for they ;
were created in conformity to the command that the

waters should bring forth reptiles.
There is only one other circumstance in this connec-

tion and that is, that in the order of narration of
;
Scrijjture, their creatiofi is spoken of before that of

fowls and therefore, in conformity to the rule which
;
has always hitherto been observed, it may be expected

that they we7'e created before fowls. Let me now re-
peat what is said of the first class of animals that were
created on the fifth, day. First, they were to be brought
forth by the waters secondly, they were to be reptiles
;
thirdly, they were to be azV-breathing animals ; fourthly,

they were to be veri/ numerous ; fifthly, there were to
be notably large animals among them, of a crocodilian
or lizard-like type, and of a serpent-like appearance;
sixthly, in the time of their creation they were to pre-
cede the creation of fowls, although both classes wei;e
to exist during this period. This is the Scriptural
record. What is the geological record of the Mesozoic
Era, the fifth day of Holy Scripture ? Does it speak of
reptiles as making their appearance during this era? It
does. It declares that they are the great prominent /ea-

tu7'e of the era; insomuch that geologists speak of it as
the Mesozoic, or reptilian age. Dana says, ''

Mesozoic, or
FIFTH DAY. 105
mediaeval time, in geological history, comprises but one

age, the reptilian. In the course of it tlie class of
reptiles passed its culmination ; that is, its species
increased in number^ size, and diversity of forms, until
they vastly exceeded in each of these respects the reptiles
Secondly, were these rep-
of either earlier or later time."
tiles animals brought forth by the ivater? They tvere.
A them lived in the seas, and never left
great portion of
it. There were also numerous tribes of crocodilians,
amphibious animals which were fitted to live either on
the land or under the water. Besides these, there were
land reptiles, which generally dwelt upon the land.
Yet a large proportion of them are said to have occupied
the marshes and estuaries (Dana, 199), and hence were
aquatic in their habits and propensities. Thirdly,
were these reptiles air-breathing animals ? They ivere.
In the age immediately preceding, God had, by means
of the enormously luxuriant vegetation of the period,
abstracted an immense quantity of carbonic acid gas
from the atmosphere. This gas is the life of plants,
but, in the quantity (in which it first existed), was
poisonous to almost all animal life. But God, having
purged the atmosphere of this animal poison, created
on the fifth day creatures different from all of those
inhabitants of the earth which had hitherto lived upon
it, and which dwelt almost exclusively beneath the
waters. He formed creatures which should breathe the
air of heaven. Of course this was the case with the
land reptiles, and also with the amphibians^ of which I
have just spoken. But it was also true of reptiles that
lived exclusively in the waters; as, for example, the
notable Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs of that period,
which are distinctly described as air-breathing animals.

Fourthly, were reptiles numerous during this period?
They were exceedmyly numerous. For this, you re-
member, was emphatically the reptilian age. Speaking
of those which dwelt in the sea only., Le Coiite (page
441) says that the variety of them (that is, of the classes
of them) was immense. How much more, then, must
this be true of the whole mass of them, taking into con-
sideration the individuals of each class ! And how fully
does it justify the command of God in Holy Scripture,
^^
Fill the waters in the sea !
" Fifthly, were there any
reptiles of large size^ of the crocodile or lizard kind, or
of a serpent-like order Most ivonderfully is this true of
?
this period. Land and air and sea swarmed with end-
less numbers of gigantic reptiles. Le Conte declares
that huge reptiles formed the distinguishing feature of
this age. He
says " Their number and variety are so
:
great, that we can only select a few from each order for
description." In our own time the largest reptiles are
not longer than twenty-five feet, but these reptiles were
from fifteen to seventy feet in length. And in the
some of them ranged from four-
girth of their bodies,
teen to twenty-two feet. Besides these were vast num-
bers of Mosasaurs, immense serpent-like reptiles some ;
of them seventy-five to eighty feet in length, the sea-

serpents as they have been called, of the Mesozoic Era.
Finally, did these reptiles appear before the fowls
of the Mesozoic age ? They did. This Mesozoic Era is
divided into three periods, called respectively, the Tri-

assic, the Jurassic, and the Cretaceous periods. Large
numbers of huge reptiles appeared in the first of these
periods ; whereas the first animals that could be classed
FIFTH DAY. 107
SiS fowls did not make their appearance until the second
of the Mesozoic periods. It is true that it was formerly
thought that certain tracks on the banks of the Con-

necticut river were the tracks of gigantic birds of the
Triassic period ; but it is now generally agreed that the
probability is that they were the tracks of reptiles
whose feet were similar to those of birds. We have
already said that foiuls are declared by the Scriptures
to have been created during this period. " God said,
Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving crea-
ture that hath life, and foivls that may fly above the
earth in the open firmament of heaven." In the next
verse we are told that God did create " every winged
fowl after his kind." And in the twenty-second verse it
said, " Let fowl multiply in the earth." There are sev-
eral points here to be noted. First, it is said that God
did create fowls during that period. But what are we
to understand hj foivls? That it includes birds cannot
be questioned. But does it mean birds, and birds only ?
Our English lexicographers agree in defining the word
"fowl," as meaning dk flying animal., on the ground that it
is derived from the Greek pJieugo., and the Latin /^^^ô,
fugo^ and volo., all of which mean to fly. On the like
ground we would emphasize this meaning in the text,
because the Hebrew noun gnop., which is translated
"fowl," is derived from the verb gnoup, which means to
fly. Gesenius gives wing as the primary meaning of the
word translated " fowl " and says that the word means
;
the "winged tribes." Indeed, in the twenty-second

verse it is expressly said that they were winged fowl;
in distinction probably from flying animals that did not
have wings ; as for example the flying squirrel. Sec-
ondly, it says that they flew in the open firmament of

heaven ; we are told that they were to be nu-
thirdly,
merous; because God said, "Let fowl multiply in the
earth " lastly, our translation says that they were
;
" brought forth out of the water."
Let us turn to the geological record, and see whether

it acknowledges the truth of the inspired statement.
You will see that it does so, fulli/ and minutely/. First,
were fowl ^reaêc? during this era ? They were. There
is no proof of the existence of any kind of winged
flying creature during the first of the three Mesozoic

periods, inasmuch as they were to be preceded by the
reptiles, which did abound during this period. But
winged reptiles, called pterosaurs, made their appear-
ance in the seco7id Mesozoic period. These were fowls,
in that they had wings, and flew through the air. They
were of various kinds, the most noted of which is the
pterodactyl, and of which there is a variety of kinds.
They were somewhat like bats but were very varied
;
in size. While some were small, others were enor-

mous creatures, whose wings, when extended, measured
twenty feet from tip to tip. There were also, during
this period, genuine birds, having feathers, with feath-
ered wings and tails, remarkable for reptilian charac-
teristics, in that they had jointed or vertebrated tails
as long as their bodies. By this I mean, not that their

tails, with the feathers, were as long as their bodies, but
that when the tails were stripped of the feathers, they

were still as long as the bodies. They also had claws
attached to their wings. During the third Mesozoic
period there was an addition to the number and kinds
of birds. There were enormous reptilian birds, with
FIFTH DAY. 109
jaws four feet long, and a spread of wing of twenty-

five feet. At least six species of siich birds have re-
cently been found in the chalk lands of our own Far
West. Only fourteen or fifteen years ago as many as
twenty species of birds were found by a single indi-
vidual in the chalk lands of New Jersey and Kansas.
These birds were less reptile-like than those of the
second Mesozoic period, and approximated more to the
birds of the present day. Secondly, did these winged
animals and birds fly in the open firmament of heaven?
It is universally conceded that they did, and that they
were not constructed like the ostrich, with wings too
small to sustain the weight of the body. There may
have been some of this sort, but generally they were
built for flying, and no one acquainted with the subject
doubts that oftentimes the firmament of heaven must
have been filled with them. Thirdly, were they nu-
merous as God said they should be? There is no doubt
that they were numerous, and, probably, very numerous.
There were various species of the pterodactyl, and there
must have been untold numbers of individuals. But
the pterodactyl is only one of several genera of winged
reptiles. Besides these, there was a variety of reptilian
birds; and only a few years since, as I have already
stated, a single explorer discovered twenty species of
genuine birds in a limited area. But we cannot doubt
that these are only ?i fragment of what remains to be dis-
covered. Finally, what evidence does Geology give
that these flying creatures were brought forth from the
waters? I answer, Whether we adopt the reading of
the text, or the more literal rendering of the margin, the
idea seems to be that fowl were brought forth from the
;
waters. I will, therefore, not consume time by discuss-

ing the question. I must confess, however, that, from
early childhood, this always struck me as something
very strange and unaccountable, that fowls should be
said to have been brought forth from the waters. Be-
cause the feathered tribes that we are acquainted with
are generally land animals. But Geology throws won-
derful light upon this mystery. Because it shows us,
first, that reptiles were brought forth from the waters
secondly, that the first flying animals were flying rep-
tiles, and are supposed to have had the power of swim-

ming as well as of flying. Thus we see the first fliers
ascending, as it were, out of the water in which they
swam, i7ito the which they flew. Next we see
air, in
reptilian hirds^ with whose habits we are not acquainted,
but who can hardly have failed in the general reptilian
propensity for the water. Finally, we have Mrds^ less
reptile-like, and more like modern birds; but, strange
to say, at least eighteen out of the twenty species re-
cently discovered are declared by naturalists to be
water-fowl. And now, in conclusion, I ask you to
say whether our examination of the work of the fourth
and fifth days of Scripture exposes any inconsistency be-
tween the teaching of Scripture and that of Geology or
Natural Science? I have already spoken of the won-
derful coincidence of the Scriptural and geological ac-
counts of the work of the fourth day, although that
work was viewed from two entirely different stand-
points: one record describing the heavens; the other,
the earth. But mark the ivonderful harmony in the
Scriptural and geological records of the work of the
fifth day. Here the geological era and the Scriptural

FIFTH DAY. Ill
are precisely the same.The Mesozoic Era and the fifth

day of Scripture begin and end at exactly the same
time. Is it not a very notable circumstance that Scrip-
ture and Geology should concur in saying that this was
the age of reptiles and of fowl ? Is it not notable that
they should both say that these are the two, and the
only two, marked characteristics of this age ? Is it not
notable that they should both lay greater stress upon
the reptilian than the hird-\\kQ character of the age,
and concur in placing the appearance of fowls after
that of the reptiles? Is it not notable that they should
agree as to the reptiles being azV-breathing reptiles?
and number of both reptiles and birds,
also as to the
and immense numbers and size of
especially as to the
the reptiles? and also as to the fact that fowls were
brought forth by the waters ? No, there is no conflict
here. Again it is all harmony. And what reasonable
person can believe it possible that this amazing and
most accurate description of the work of the fifth day
could "have been mere guess-work on the part of the
author of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis?
And, when taken in connection with all the wonderful
coincidences of the four preceding days, is not he a
rash man who will speak slightingly of the inspiration
of Moses?
Lecture Y.
PART I.
SIXTH DAY. GEN. I. 24-27.
WE have at length reached the

of the creation. As the fifth
last of the six days
day corresponded
with the Mesozoic, or third period of geologists, so
does the sixth day correspond with their fourth and
last great period, namely, the Cenozoic period. On the
fifth day were created a great variety and multitude
of animals that were brought forth by the luaters^ con-
sisting of reptiles and fowls. On this, the sixth day,
the animals were brought forth by the la7id. " And
God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature
after his kind."
We find on this day two great divisions of animals
created : first, the lower orders of land animals ; sec-
ondly, man.
We will consider them separately ; and, first, we will
note w^hat is said of the lower orders of land animals,
as their creation is first mentioned. First, you will
observe that these animals are represented to be of
three different sorts: first, cattle; second, creeping
things ; third, beasts. It is difficult, however, to under-
stand exactly w^hat are meant by cattle, and exactly
the line of distinction between them and what are called

beasts. The root meaning of the words translated
cattle and beasts respectively will not determine this
matter. The word for cattle is behama^ the
original
root meaning of which is a dumb creature. The word
for beast is hai, which means a living creature. But as
all of the lower orders of animals are both dumb and
alive, we find in their root meanings no line of distinc-
tion between them. It is certain, however, that the
Hebrew word behama, or " cattle " (as it is in our transla-

tion), does not mean simply animals of the ox species.
Among Americans, the word "cattle" is commonly ap-
plied exclusively to this one species of domestic animals.
But this is a provincialism. And you will find by con-
sulting your dictionary that the word " cattle " includes
not only the ox species, but all kinds of domestic quad-

rupeds^ horses, asses, mules, sheep, goats, hogs, etc.
A.nd thus the word is used in Scripture, as, for example.
Genesis xlvii. 16, 17. When the Egyptians had paid Jo-
seph all their money for food, he said to them, "Give your
cattle if money fail. And they brought their cattle unto
Joseph and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for
;
horses, and for the flocks, and for the cattle of the herds,
and for asses." Here you will perceive that horses,
flocks, and asses are numbered among the cattle brought
to Joseph, as well as the cattle of the herds. An exam-
ination of the passages where the word behama occurs
will show that it does commonly refer to domestic quad-
rupeds, but not always, as on one occasion the lion is
spoken of as the strongest of the behama of the forest.
And in Jeremiah xix. 7, God threatens the Jews to give
their carcasses " to be meat for the fowls of the heaven,
SIXTH DAY. 115
and for the behama of the earth." In both of these cases,

and a few others, the behama are ranked with wild
beasts. Gesenius regards the word behama.^ here trans-
lated "cattle," as applying properly to the larger class of
quadrupeds, and also as embracing domestic quadrupeds
generally. A-nd this seems to be as near to a correct
definition of it as it is possible to get. These, then, are
one class of animals created, according to Scripture, on
the sixth day ; namely, large quadrupeds, and domestic
quadrupeds generally.
Secondly, creeping things are represented as having
been created on the sixth day. "And God said, Let
the earth briiTg forth the living creature after his kind,
cattle, and creeping fhing.'^ I had occasion to remark
that when on the fifth day it is said that " God created
great whales and every living creature that moveth,'^
the wordmoveth " in the Hebrew was a part of the
"
verb raumas^ and that raumas^ strictly speaking, means
"creeps," or "crawls." And we find a confirmation of
this in the passage now under consideration. For the
Hebrew word here translated "creeping thing" is remes.
And if noun remes means a " creeping thing," so
the
the verb raumas means " creeps." But what are the
creeping things brought forth by the earth? Evidently
this applies pre-eminently to snakes. Therefore, accord-
ing to Scripture, snakes were a creation of this sixth
day.
Thirdly, "the beast of the earth" was now created.
The three classes of creatures named brought forth by
as
the earth are " cattle, and the creeping thing, and the
beast of the earth.^'' I have already stated that it is diffi-
cult to draw the line of demarcation between the cattle

and the beasts in this text, because the word for beasts is
on other occasions variously applied. In Leviticus xi. 2
it is included in those which in the passage we are
discussing, are transhited " cattle." The Lord is rep-
resented as saying, " Speak unto the children of Israel,
sajang. These are the beasts which ye shall eat
among all the beasts that are on the earth." But the
second word for beasts in this passage is behama.
On the ivhole^ however, we word for the
find that the
third class created on the sixth day, and translated
"beasts," applies for the most part to wild animals; and
especially to such as are of a ravenous, fierce nature.
The first and third classes taken ôêÂerf therefore, in-
chide all kinds of land quadrupeds ; all of what are
called the mammalian species of animals; that is to say,
all kinds of animals that suckle their young. Birds
and fish and reptiles do not suckle their young, and
7iot mammalians.
therefore are Whereas all quadrupeds
and mankind do suckle them, and consequently are
mammalians.
But I have all along called your attention to this
fact, that in all statements of the events of creation
hitherto, the inspired writer has observed an exact
order ; and that this order is observed not only in a
general way, as to the main work of the respective
days^ but also in regard to all the particular work
of each day; so that whatever particular thing is first
mentioned as being done, that thing in fact tvas first
done. As, for example, in the work of the fifth day

the waters are commanded to bring forth reptiles and
fowls. It is said then that they did bring forth reptiles
and fowls. Here both in the command and in the
;
:
SIXTH DAY. 117
statement of what was done reptiles are mentioned

firsts fowls afterward. And accordingly, in point of
fact.; reptiles were first created^ and fowls afterward.
But in the passage we are considering, as to the animals
brought forth by the earth., there is a remarkable de-
parture from a rule always observed hitherto. Which
rule had been to say, that God had constantly called for
such and such things to be in a certain order., and then
follows the statement that these very things were;
and precisely the same order as before is observed in
naming them. But, in this work of the sixth day, I
say there is a wide departure from the rule so carefully
observed hitherto. In the call for the animals to be
created, they are named in the order already stated
first, cattle ; second, the creeping thing ; third, the beast
of the earth. But in the next verse, when it is stated
what God made., it is, first, the heast ; second, the
cattle; third, the creeping thing. The order is com-
pletely changed. That which is named first in the call
for the animals is named second in the statement of
what was done. That which was second in the call is
third in the statement. That which was third in the
call is first in the statement. No class of animals
occupies the same place in the statement of what was
done that it did in the call for them. This struck me
with much surprise when it was first noticed, and the
question occurred to me. What does it mean ? It was
evidently a renunciation of all order, and the onl}^ con-
clusion I could come to was, that there was no order in
the creation of these quadrupeds and creeping things
and consequently that they must all have been created
at the same time. For if they had not been created at
the same time, there must have been some order in their
creation. And it is probable that the creation of all
these three classes of animals took place at the begin-

ning of the sixth day. For as God was working, it is
not probable that he would defer to begin his work
after theday had begun.
Let us now recapitulate the points which we have
noted in the Scriptural statement of the work of the
sixth day, in so far as the creation of the lower orders
of land animals is concerned. First, that land animals
were created on this day secondly, that large quadru-
;
peds generally, and domestic animals in particular, were

created on this day thirdly, that creeping things were
;
then created; fourthly, that wild animals, and especially

those that now are of a fiercer nature, were created;
fifthly, that no order was observed in the creation of
these animals, leading to the inference that all kinds

were created at once, and in the beginning of the day.
Let us now turn to the geological record of this period,
and compare its testimony with the testimony of Holy
Scripture. But before doing so, let me explain that
this Cenozoic Era is divided by geologists into two
periods, namely the Tertiary Period and the Quaternary
Period and that each of these two periods is subdivided
;
into three epochs. The Tertiary is divided into the

Eocene, the Meiocene, and the Pliocene. The Quater-
nary is divided into the Glacial, the Champlain, and the
Terrace Epochs. Bearing in mind these divisions of
the Cenozoic Period, let us seek their testimony as to
the events that then occurred. And, first, as the pre-
vious period was noted for animals brought forth by
the waters. Was this Cenozoic Period, in like manner,
SIXTH DAY. 119
noted for animals brought forth by. the land, as the

Scriptures declare that it was? Geology states most
emphatically that it was. It informs us that in this
period, in so far as the life of the period is concerned,
the whole face of nature is changed. All the mighty
reptiles of the former age have disappeared, and the
reptiles found in the Cenozoic Era are comparatively
small in size and few in number. But in this Cen-
ozoic Era, this sixth day of the Scriptures, the earth
is filled with la7id animals of every imaginable, and, in-
deed, wwimaginable, variety and kind. They are the

monarchs of the era, as reptiles were the monarchs of
the Mesozoic Era.
Secondly, Were large quadrupeds and the ordinary
domestic quadrupeds created at this time ? They were.
All agree that large true mammalian animals abounded
throughout this entire period, even from its very com-
mencement. In addition to animals akin to those now
in existence, there were vast numbers and many dif-
ferent kinds of huge quadrupeds, many of them far
exceeding in size any that now exist upon the earth.
We read of the dinothere, a huge animal, with a skull
three feet long, to which was attached a proboscis. It
had two huge tusks bent downward from the lower
jaw. The distance from the points of the tusks to the
top of the skull was five feet. There was then an ani-
mal called the sivathere, a huge four-horned antelope,
as tall as an elephant, with two very wide horns in the
back part of the head. The bramathere was a similar
animal, of like gigantic size. There were also many
varieties of the rhinoceros, of the hippopotamus, and of
the elephant. There were also varieties of the masto-
don, which was one-third taller than the elephant, and

in every way larger. There was also the huge megathe-
rium, eighteen feet long, and fourteen and a half feet in
girth and the monster tinoceras, whose head alone was
;
four feet long. These were some of the huge quadru-

peds which might properly be classed among the hehama
of the period. But there were also, from the earliest
times, domestic animals. In the very opening of the
Cenozoic Era there were animals of the horse and hog
families. At quite an early period there were also
camels, sheep, oxen, cats, and dogs.
Thirdly, Were land creeping things, especially snakes^
created at this time? They There was an abun-
were.
dance of reptiles created during the Mesozoic Era, the
fifth day of Scripture but all geologists agree that
;
there were no snakes among them. This is the more

remarkable from the fact that in the immense variety
of reptiles of the fifth day it would very naturally
be supposed that there tvould have been some of the
true snake species. It would seem to us much more
likely that the reptiles brought forth by the waters
would be associated with snakes than with birds. But
Moses tells us that the land reptile, of which the snake
is chief, was formed on the sixth day, and the bird on
the fifth. And Geology tells us the same thing.

Fourthly, Were wild animals and quadrupeds gener-
ally of smaller size
formed during this Cenozoic
Era? They were. Animals similar to the wild animals
now living, besides a great many extinct species of simi-
lar animals, abounded in this period. Among the ani-
mals of the era we find many that are familiar to us,
the camelopard, the antelope, the musk ox, the hyena.
SIXTH DAY. 121
the tiger, the panther, the wolf, the deer, the stag, the
fox, the squirrel, the mole, and others, especially mon-
keys. All these animals of which have spoken, of all
1
three classes (cattle, creeping things, and the beast of

the earth), made their appearance on the earth in this
Cenozoic period, the sixth day of Scripture, and none of
them had ever appeared before this time.
But I stated that God is represented as calling iov these
animals in this order cattle, creeping thing, and beast
:
of the earth but that in the next verse, which gives us

;
an account of their actual creation, the order is entirely

transposed and the place of each sort is different from
;
what it was before. And this, you perceive, is a renun-

ciation of all order in their creation, and consequently
implies that they must have been created at the same
time, and probably in the beginning of the era. And
such is the clear and positive testimony of geologists
on this subject. For all of these three classes of ani-
mals made their appearance in the Eocene epoch, wliich
is the very beginning of the Tertiary period, and the
Tertiary is the beginning of the Cenozoic Era. Remem-

ber, too, that both those styled cattle and those called
beasts of the earth are all of them mammals (animals
which suckle young). But Le Conte says that with
their
the opening of the Eocene the earth seems to swarm with
mammals. "And this," he says, "is true, not only in
Europe, but also on the Western plains and Rocky
Mountain region." " True placental mammals," he
says, " not only appear suddenly and in great numbers,
but of nearly all orders^ even the highest, except man,
namely, monkeys." In like manner, Dana says, "In the
early Eocene^ at the opening of the age of mammals,
appeared herbivores and carnivores of large size." But

you will ask, How was it with regard to the reptile ?
Le Conte says, Five species of snakes, some of them
'
eight feet long, have been found in the Eocene of

Wyoming, and several also in Europe.'" That is to
sa}^, that they then appeared, in the very beginning of
the era, on both continents. Dana repeatedly afBrms
that, while snakes occur in the Eocene, they never
were found before this time. His words are, ''The
first of true snakes occur in the Eocene." And again,
" No fossil snakes have been found below the Cenozcic,
although large reptiles abounded in the Mesozoic." Thus
you see that all three classes of animals created this day,
were created in the very beginning of the era, and you
also see how surprisingly the Scriptural and geological
records correspond in respect to the order of the crea-
tion.
But although the loiver orders of animals were cre-
ated together, and this is intimated by the peculiar
arrangeinent adopted by the inspired writer, yet he
does not intimate that man was created at the same
time that the other animals were, but does very clearly
imply that he was created some time after all the rest.
Let us consider the account of the creation of man.
In verses 24 and 25, God speaks of the creation of the
inferior animals. He calls for them in verse 24, says in
verse 25 that he raade them, and concludes with the
assertion, "God saw that it was good." He then pro-
ceeds afterivards^ and (as a matter entirely distinct from
the former creation) he tells us of the creation of man
in these words: "And God said. Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness : and let them have do-
SIXTH DAY. 123
minion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and
over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of
God created he him male and female created he them."
;
The superiority of man and his dominion over all

other animals, and over all the earth, which are here
asserted, are universally conceded^ and it is not neces-
sary to discuss them. We shall consider his creation
simply in its. geological It appears from these
bearings.
words of Scripture, first, that man was created during
the sixth day of Scripture. It is so distinctly stated.
Secondly, it is intimated that he was created a consider-

able time after the other creatures of this day. This
appears not only from the fact that his creation is me7i-
tioned after that of the others, but also from the cir-
cumstance that it is not at all associated with that of the
other animals but a subsequent and separate account
;
is given of his creation. But if he was created after the

other animals, it follows necessarily that the creation of
man was the last great act of creation, the grand finale
of the labors of the preceding six days' work.
This is the Scriptural. What is the geological record
on this subject? Does Geology teach us that man was
created during the Cenozoic period? It does. The
stoutest unbeliever, he who is most anxious to contra-
dict the Divine record, is obliged to admit that the cre-
ation of man did take place in the Cenozoic Era, and
not before.
Secondly, does Geology teach that man was created
after the other three classes of animals of which I have
just spoken? It does. All geologists admit it. For
we have se-en that Geology teaches us that all the othe)-
three classes of land animals were created in the Uo-

cene epoch, in the very beginning of the fit^st period of
the Cenozoic Era. But
have never heard of the most
I
fanatical even of unbelieving geologists claiming so high
an antiquity for the human species. All geologists
admit that man was the crowning work of God. And
all historical Geology that I am acquainted with ends,
as the Scripture does, with the account of his appear-

ance upon this earth.
And now, in reviewing the work of this day, I would
call your attention to this fact that while there is no
:
collision whatever between the Scriptural and geological

records, there are, on the other hand, numerous and
remarkable coincidences in their statements. Is it not
remarkable, first, that Scripture and Geology should
concur in making the creation of air-breathing water
and land animals the work, not of the same, but of two
distinct and separate periods? Is it not remarkable
that they should concur in saying that they were suc-

cessive periods, with no interval between them, but the
one following immediately after the other? Is it not
remarkable that they should concur as to which was
firsts and which second in order, both affirming that
in the former period the air-breathing ivater animals

appeared, and in the latter, the air-breathing land ani-
mals ? Is it not remarkable that both Scripture and Geol-
ogy should separate snakes from the reptile period, to
which we would naturally suppose that they belonged ?
and should both identify birds with the zâêr period,
although we would naturally suppose them to be land
animals ? Is it not remarkable that the classes of ani-
SIXTH DAY. 125
mals mentioned as created on the sixth day should be

the creation which, according to both Scripture and
Geology, pre-eminently marks the Cenozoic period? Is
it not very remarkable, that, on every previous day,
when it is said that certain things should be done, and

these things are mentioned in a certain order, after-
wards, when it is said what ivas done, these things are
always mentioned in the same order as before, and the
order in which they are named is always the order in
which they were created. But on Ms day only this
rule is departed from. They are called for in one order.
They are mentioned as having been made in an entirely
different order, thus clearly intimating that their crea-
tion was to be at the same time, and not in successive
epochs. And, accordingly, Geology testifies that in
this instance, and in this instance only^ the creation of
the different classes of things mentioned ivas at the
same time, and not successively. Finally, is it not very
wonderful that Scripture and Geology should both affirm
that man was the great end, the grand climax of all
things and beings formed upon this globe ? But while
there is no collision between the testimony of Genesis i.
and Geology as to the period and as to the order of
man's appearance, yet there has been a great and most
earnest effort on the part of some geologists, and others,
to prove that man has been longer upon the earth than
OTHER parts of Scripture represent him to have been.
This series of lectures, therefore, would be incomplete
if this last refuge of unbelief were not uncovered and
shown to be utterly incapable of affordingany shelter.
We proceed, therefore, to the consideration of that sub-
ject, the teaching of Geology as to the antiquity of man.
PART II.
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN.

A CCORDING to the Scriptural account, only a short
^-^ thue has elapsed (geologically speaking) since the
creation of man. Different chronologists vary in their
calculations. The system of chronology adopted in our
authorized version of the Holy Scriptures (and which
is generally recognized) is that of Archbishop Usher.
According to it, it is Adam and
just 5893 years since
Eve were made. According
Doctor Hale, however,
to
who is also regarded as reliable authority, it is 7300
years. Some geologists, however, would fain make it
hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps a half-million
of years, since that time. Le Conte, whose Geology is
much in vogue at this time, says " It may be one hun-
:
dred thousand years, or it may be only ten thousand

years; but more probably the former than the latter."
Indeed, he constantly endeavors to prove that it was
about the middle of the Champlain epoch, which is the
middle of the Quaternary period, and, according to
geological ideas, was quite one hundred thousand years
ago. I am not aware, however, that any Scriptural
chronologist of any authority reckons so much as ten
thousand years, which is the least period assigned by
Le Conte as possible to be accepted, since man was
placed upon this earth. It is manifest, therefore, that
all these geological computations (however they may be
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 127
intended) are, in fact, a blow aimed at the Divine in-

tlie Holy Scriptures.
spiration of
But all-important to the temporal and eternal well-
being of mankind as is faith in the Scriptures, and
overwhelmingly and apparently conclusive as are the
arguments in favor of their authenticity^ the reasons
assigned on geological grounds for repudiating them
ought, before accepting them, to be of the most satis-
factory, and, indeed, incontrovertible^ character. I have
read such as have come under my observation with
eare^ and will endeavor to present those most relied
upon, with candor ; but as to the weight of those
reasons, I will ask you to judge. Le Conte, in open-
ing the discussion of this subject, makes this remark:
" There has been recently far too much eagerness to
find facts which overthrow accepted beliefs^ and to ac-
cept them on this account alone^ Here, then, is a
confession on the part of this eminent geologist, that
there a great want of candor among his brother geol-
is
ogists,and a very strong desire on their part to make

the most of anything which will give the least plausible
pretext for undermining the Christian faith. In other
words, he labels their arguments with the words " Be-
ware of counterfeits." But he sees the fallacy of their
arguments, who would overthrow Scripture by making
man's period upon the earth five hundred thousand
years and although I understand that he professes to
;
be a Christian man, still his views are hardly less hostile

to the Christian faith, albeit he is disposed to claim as
man's period only one hundred thousand years.
And here let me say in regard to the proofs upon which
he, and all others like him, rely, that they are in their very
nature most uncertain. There never has been found, so

far as I can learn, a human
skeleton, or so much as one
human bo7ie, as an old rock fossil. All that ever have
been appealed to, have been discovered on the surface
of the earth, in caves, or river beds, or among bones of
extinct animals, or among piles of shells, or as shell
rock, or as bone rock, or a comparatively few feet under
the soil. And therefore all the guesses of unbelieving
geologists as to their antiquity are, in their very nature,
unreliable.
But let us come to particulars ; and I will take their
very best proofs that I have found. I find in the
Encyclopedia Britannica a case reported of a human
skeleton found in the delta of the Mississippi River,
under four forests, and computed to have been deposited
there some fifty thousand years ago. We are not told,
however, in what part of the delta this discovery was
made that is, how many miles it was from the mouth
;
of the Mississippi River. But we know that it could

not have been far, as was in the delta. Neither could
it
it have been deep, for I doubt if it is practicable to sink
a shaft twenty-five feet in any part of the delta, on

account of the water, which would resist all attempts
of this sort. But let the discovery have been made in
the most remote part of the delta from the Gulf of
Mexico, and at the greatest depth we can imagine, what
does it amount to? We have the authority of Le Conte
hiaiself for saying that the Mississippi River is pushing
the delta out into tlie Gulf of Mexico at the rate of
one mile for every sixteen years. If this rate of land
formation has been going on for tivo thousand years
past, as there is evident reason to suppose it has, then
during this two thousand years the delta has extended

one hundred and twenty miles into the Gulf. Conse-
quently the what is now the delta was then a
ivliole of
part of the Gulf of Mexico and this skeleton must;
certainly have been deposited in the delta during that

time. And as for the four forests, which we would
fain be led to believe grew there, on the spot, they were
evidently floated down and lodged there.
the Mississippi
Who has not heard of the Red River That trib-
rafts ?
utary alone^ in the course of two thousand years, might
furnish material for a dozen forests. And the skeleton
of fifty thousand years antiquity may have belonged to
a man who navigated the Mississippi River not fifty
years previous to its discovery.
But let us consider what Le Conte has culled from
the mass of facts set forth by unbelieving geologists, and
which he considers reliable proof that man existed in the
middle of the Quaternary period, some one hundred thou-
sand years ago. Evidently, he must have taken the best
he could find. First, he and other geologists speak of
the stone age, of the bronze age, and of the iron age.
By this they mean that there was first a period when
men made their utensils of stone, followed by one when
made
their utensils were of bronze ; and finally, by one
when they were made of iron. But they admit that the
bronze age and the iron age are comparatively modern.
And it is only the stone age that can be relied upon to
carry man back one hundred thousand years. But
then, they are able to make two ages out of this one.
They have their Neolithic as well as their Paloeolithic ;
that is, their neiv as well as their old stone age.

Le Conte, in his diagram, makes the new stone age to
correspond with the last epoch of the Quaternary, and

the old stone age to correspond with the previous
epoch ; botli more than
thousand years, and one of
ten
them one Jiundred thousand years ago. And yet, on
that very page^ only a few lines heloiv^ he acknoivledges
that the South Sea Islanders are at this very moment in
the stone age ; and North American Indians
that the
were so only three ce?ituries ago. And I presume there
are multitudes in Africa, in New Holland, and Asia,
that are still in that condition. What evidence, then,
does the discovery of stone implements in any country
afford to j^rove that men lived there one hundred thou-
sand years ago ? Was there ever a verier figment
devised to mystify the minds of men than this division
of time into new stone and old stone, into bronze and
iron ages ?
But they say the stone age in Europe^ and per-

haps in some other countries, would carry us back into
this remote antiquity. I ask in reply. What do we
know of the condition of any part Europe, except
of
the southeastern corner of it, only three thousand years
ago, to justify the assumption that the tribes who dwelt
there did not at that time make their implements in
great part, and perhaps wholly, of stone? We know
that Northern Europe was regarded as in a savage
all
state not much more than two thousand years ago.

Grant Allen, in an essay on "Who was Primitive Man ?"
and published in the " Fortnightly Review " for Sep-
tember, 1882, makes these remarks " There are still :
isolatedcommunities in out-of-the-way parts of Scotland

which use hand-made pottery of the rudest primeval
type, and spin with stone ivhorls of the prehistoric
pattern; while their works of imitative art are ruder

and more unlike the originals they depict than anything
ever attempted by the earliest known men."
The fact is that the material out of which men make
their implements has little bearing upon the question
of their antiquity^ but rather upon that of their civiliza-
tion. Savage and uncultivated men made stone imple-
ments three thousand years ago, and they make them
to-day. Civilized men understand the manufacture of
iron implements to-day they did so in the palmy day
;
of republican Rome tliey did so in the time of Noah,

;
and some of his descendants have never forgotten it.

Indeed, it has been understood in the world ever since
the days of Tubal-Cain, who was only the sixth in lineal
descent from Adam. A ivondrous shift, then, are they
put to who rely upon the discovery of stone implements
in any country to prove that it was inhabited by men
one hundred thousand years ago.
As another principal evidence of this great antiquity,
it is affirmed by Le Conte, speaking in reference to
California, that "there seems to be no doubt that the
works of man have been found, associated with the re-
mains of animals, both recent and extinct, in the super-
ficial placer deposits "; that is, of California. By '-^placer
deposits" meant deposits of minute parcels of gold

is
along with sand and gravel in the beds of rivers. But

observe, in the first place, that Le Conte does not say
that the works of man have certainly been found in
these river beds, but only that there seems to be no
doubt that they were found there. Which implies that
it isquite possible that no such finding ever took place,
or else that it is in nowise certain that the works found
13^ GENESIS AND GEOLOGY.
were really the works of man. But if such works were

found, what the7if These placer deposits, we are else-
where informed, are of two kinds, the old and the new.
This deposit was one of the new sort,
he tells us that
it was a superficial deposit,
and perhaps, as he informs
us, the deposit itself was made in the last of the Qua-
ternary epochs, and not so ver^ long ago, after all. But
are we to suppose that these human contrivances were
placed there at the time the deposit tvas made ? I ask,
Have not men always hunted for gold ? and may they
not in so doing have dropped some of their utensils in
the bed of the stream ? He does not tell us what these
works were. For aught ive know, therefore, they may
have been left there by some recent miners within the
past thirty years much more by the former Indian
;
settlers who dwelt there ever since and before Colum-

bus discovered America, and who, as we all know, were
gold-hunters. But it may be said, these "works" as
Le Conte callsthem
were found along with the bones
of extinct animals. Very true But would man be
I
kept from searching a river bed for gold because of the

presence of animal remains there ? Besides, it is also
said that they werefound along with the bones of recent
animals. What the recent animals were we are not told.
But we are told what the extinct animals were, and every
one of them was a mammalian. It is fair to presume,
therefore, that some of the recent animals, if not all of
them, were also mammalians. But Le Conte himself

tells us that none of the recent mammalian animals lived
in the Quaternary period. But if they did not exist

so long ago as in the Quaternary, their hones must
have been deposited in the river bed since that period.
And if the bones of animals could get there since the
Quaternary period, why, I ask, in the name of all that

is reasonable, might not the works of man also have got
there since that period? I ask, then, if this reliable

argument is not rubbish.
But again we are assured that it is a positive fact^
well attested by the careful examination of many
scientists, thaton the banks of the liver Somme, in its
terraces, near Abbeville, chipped flint instruments were
found in undisturbed gravel, associated with the bones
of the mammoth, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, hyena, horse,
etc. The inference which lie evidently draws, and
would have us draw, from this is, that these animals
must have existed more than six thousand years ago,
and that these flint instruments were deposited there at
the time these animals lived. I could very easily
give reasons which make it extremely doubtful as to

whether these animals preceded man, especially as it is
not said that more than one af them belonged to an
extinct species but this is not material.
; It matters not
how old these animals were the finding ; of the chipped
flint instruments associated with their hones in undis-
turbed gravel is no proof whatever of any great antiq-
uity. For it is a fact well known to those living in the
region of country in which I myself reside that persons
are continually finding works wrought by man under
circumstances /ar more likely to lead to the supposition
of great antiquity than these flint chippings near
Abbeville. But we are utterly precluded from such
supposition by unmistakable evidences of very recent
origin. Ifc is enough to say of these findings near
Abbeville that they were on the banks of a river,
which, as all banks are, are continually changing. Just

as strange a find occurred in my own experience.
Some thirty-five years ago, in digging for marl in the
lands of one of my parishioners, there were found just
above the marl at a depth of some seven or eight feet
from the surface of the ground two pieces of iron pot-
ware. It created great surprise. No one could imagine
how they could have gotten there.They were given
to me by my parishioner, and had ample opportunity
I
to examine them. They were associated with the re-

mains of animals of the Tertiary period. And yet it
was as plain as day that they got there within the past
one hundred or one hundred and fifty years. For they
were clearly some of our own common iron potware.
Their thickness, their shape, their rings, such as such
potsnow have, left not a shadow of doubt on my mind
that they were of American or English manufacture,
and of very recent At the same time the same
origin.
person presented me with a two-ounce glass vial found
elsewhere, according to my recollection at a depth of
three or four feet, and about half filled with a viscous
fluid. It was a long vial, precisely such as were then
in vogue, and must have been recently deposited but ;
it is difficult to understand how it got there.

A far more remarkable case than that recited by Le
Conte occurred in the town of Washington, N.C. Some
years since, in digging a well, at the depth of about
twelve or thirteen feet from the surface, there was found
about a peck of anthracite coal. To reach it, they dug
through five feet of very hard clay, then five feet of
yellow sand, and in the white sand below was found
the coal. The strata above were apparently undis
turbed. It was in high, level ground, at a distance of
one hundred yards or more from the river bank, and

five hundred miles from any vein of anthracite coal,
except a small deposit one hundred and fifty miles
away, in Chatham County. How it got there we cannot
tell,but it must have got there within the last fifty
years. For it was the common Q^g coal, such as has
always been brought to that market. In a marl bed in
Pitt County, and belonging to a gentleman by the name
of Worthington, there was found a stone inkstand. It
was about twelve or thirteen feet below the surface of
the ground, and was imbedded seven feet in the marl.
But this does not prove the existence of man here some
million of years ago in Tertiary times. No it was an
;
inkstand^ curiously hollowed out of a dark slate-colored

stone. was square on the sides, flat on the bottom,
It
oval on the top. Its modern origin is evident from the
fact that it was clearly an inkstand^ with a nipple on

the top for the insertion of a cork., and with holes on
the corners of the upper surface, evidently intended for
quills or steel pens: all of which arrangement is of
late date.
There were two other discoveries equally remarkable
in the same county. Mr. John Randolph found, at a
depth of seven feet from the surface of the ground, and
imbedded three feet in the marl, a petrified ham. In gen-
eral appearance it was precisely such a ham as is now to
be found in the smoke-houses of the people of that sec-
tion. Some miles from him, a gun-barrel was found in
the farm of Mr. Council Dawson. It was four feet under
ground, and two or three feet in the marl. The barrel
was in good order, but the lock was gone and the stock
decayed. After the barrel was found, it was loaded

with powder and discharged on several occasions.
Other equally remarkable finds might be mentioned
of articles evidently of ve?'// recent origin, and yet
found with associatto7is quite as indicative of remote
antiquity as the chipped flint implements of the banks
of the river Somme. Dana mentions some coin of the
reign of Edward I. of England, found ten feet below the
bed of the river Dove, and formed into cofiglomerate
rock. The coin themselves were only six hundred years
old. There is no telling how much later they were
dropped into the river. Such discoveries are constantly
being made. They are far more difficult to account
for than the chipped flints in question, and yet the evi-
dence of rece'nt origin is unmistakable. Indeed, the
finding of these flint chippings is not at all difficult to
explain ; more unsteady and liable to

for nothing is
constant change than the loamy and gravelly banks
of a river. It might very easily happen that bits of
flint should be imbedded in gravel and covered up
in a time of high water, and that loam to any depth

might eventually be piled up over it by subsequent
freshets.
But that which most of all is relied upon to prove
the great antiquity of man, is the finding of human
bones and implements in caves in various parts of
the world, and associated with the bones of extinct
races of animals. But I must say that nothing fills
me with more amazement than that intelligent men

should adduce such an argument as this to prove the
antiquity of the human race and expect intelligent men
to attach the least weight to it. The bones and imple-
;
ments of men have been found in caves associated with

the bones of extinct animals ! What then ? Does that
prove, as they would have us infer, that the men whose
bones they were, lived at the same time that these ani-
mals lived? Suppose a man, lost in such a cave two
years ago and unable to find his wa}^ out, were to die
there, would not his bones be found (if found at all)
associated with the bones of extinct animals? But

would it be right to infer that the man lived one hun-
dred thousand years ago? Is it not a notorious fact
that caves have been inhabited by men from the days
of Lot, who, with his two daughters, fled to a cave at
the time of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah ?
And in how many instances do we read of such inhabi-
tation of caves during the entire Jewish history ? as, for
example, by the five kings of Canaan at the cave of
Makkedah by the persecuted Israelites in the days of
;
and again in the days of Philistine, power

Midianitish,
by David, in the cave of Adullam and in other in-
;
stances.
But it may be said. These bones are sometimes
found below the surface in the caves. And have not
caves been used as burying places from the time of
Abraham, who, with the patriarchs Isaac and Jacob,
were all buried in a cave in the field of Machpelah ?
Multitudes of persons have died and been buried in
caves all over the world for thousands of years past.
But their bones, when found, will be necessarily found
beneath the surface, and also associated with the bones
of whatever animals were in the caves at the time of
their burial, or which have been deposited there since ;
but can anything more unreasonable be imagined than

138 -GENESIS AND GEOLOGY,
to infer from these facts that they were cotemporaries
of the ancient animals whose bones are also deposited
there ?
But is said that in a cave at Engis, on the banks

it
of the Meuse, there was found the skull of a man

in bone breccia beneath a stalagmitic crust. By bone
breccia is meant bone cemented together by lime in ;
other words, bone rock. And as stalagmites are hard-

ened lime, of course bones beneath a stalagmite must be
bone breccia. Dana instances the discovery of a whole
human skeleton in shell rock, in Guadaloupe ; but he
does not hesitate to pronounce upon the man whose
skeleton it was
having been a fighting Carib two
as
hundred years ago. But we can hardly imagine that
it would take ffty years to convert hone into rock, if
exposed to the drippings of a stalactite. And as for the
stalagmite itself which covered the skull, we cannot
doubt that one of very respectable thickness could be
formed in less than two hundred years if there had been
a rapid dripping of limestone water upon it.
And now I have presented to you the very strongest
geological proofs of the great antiquity of man that I
have been able to discover. Do they prove it ? Have
they any power whatever to your minds a rea-
raise in
sonable donht as to the necessity of man's having been
created more than six thousand years ago? On the
contrary, do they so much as prove that man existed
more than two thousand five hundred years ago? They
do not to my mind. But I have not quite finished
Le Conte's argument on this subject. After an elabo-
rate setting forth of his argument to prove that man
does not belong exclusively to the recent period, as the
Scriptures assert (that is, within the last six thousand

years), but that his origin certainly dates back one
hundred thousand years, even to the middle of the
Quaternary, I find this amazing assertion, which I am
about to recite, and in which, as you will perceive, he
flatly contradicts the whole of his previous argument.
Remember that man belongs to the mammalian fauna.
Le Conte's words are " The Miocene mammalian fauna
:
is from the Eocene, the Pliocene totally

totally different
different from the Miocene, the Quaternary from the
Pliocene, and the present (that is, the mammalians now
in existence) from the Quaternary." Now I ask, if the
present mammalian fauna are totally different from the
Quaternary, as he here positively asserts, how is it pos-
sible to put man into the Quaternary? Is he not one
of the present mammalian fauna? And consequently
if man existed in the Quaternary, the present mamma-
lia are not totally different from those of the Quater-
nary. But we will give him credit for a slip of the pen,
and suppose that he intended to say that, with the ex-
ception of some anticipatory animals, and especially of
anticipatory man, the present mammalians are totally
different from the Quaternary. But is not this in the
teeth of a law which he asserts only a few lines pre-
viously, to the effect that the higher the order of the
mammalian, the less likely it is to continue, and conse-
quently as man is the highest of all mammalians, he of
all is the least likely to have lived in the Quaternary ?
And especially does this hold, when we consider that

man appears to be the crowning work of God, the last
created of all animals. Alas, alas ! to wdiat vain shifts
and contradictio7is does the deceitfulness of the human
heart cause men to resort to impair their own faith and

that of others in tliat blessed Revelation which a merci-
ful God made of himself to a benighted and a sinful
has
world. But it is indeed all in vain. For the Holy
Scriptures are in very trutli the word of the Creator of
all worlds and of all creatures; and he has not left
us without abundant and certain proofs that they are
his words. Proofs they are so certain and conclusive
that any one who will be at the pains to examine
them, will be thoroughly satisfied that neither Geology
nor any other branch of Natural Science can possibly
be antagonistic to them.
In the course of the lectures which I have delivered
in your hearing, I have shown you that in all the gen-
eral eras of Geology and Scripture there is not the
slightest discord that so far as Geology goes^ the great
;
eras are the same, and their order is the same. Further
than this, I have shown you in regard to all the minutim
of the different eras, in the facts themselves, and in the
order of their occurrence, that the testimony of Scripture
on the subject finds its counterpart in the reiterating
voice of God, and of natural science in every instance
that Geology and natural science were able to speak
definitely on the subject. I have also shown you that
those Scriptural statements which of themselves seem
to be unreasonable and almost unintelligible have a
light poured upon them by geological research which
make them not only easy to be understood^ but which
also prove them to be most certainly true. So far then,
is Genesis i. from detracting from the credibility of the
Holy Scriptures, that it bears upon it^ face the impress

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. .
141
of itsDivine origin and we are justified in appealing

;
to it as one of the bulwarks of the faith.

And now, in conclusion, I would say only a few words
in regard to the cause of infidelity ; I mean the reason
why men are so exceedingly prone to rush into it. It
is, I am well assured, because the Scriptures afQrm that
" God shall bring every work into judgment, with every
secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."
because God
It is has so constituted every man, that he
cannot help feeling his accountability for his conduct.
But poor, erring, sinful man cannot bear the thought of
being subjected to the searching test of the Judgment
Day and, above all, cannot endure the thought that
;
his eternal destiny depends upon the 7'esult of his trial.
And therefore he is not willing to believe that it is
really so. He will not believe if he can help it. His

consciousness of guilt will not suffer him to enjoy any
peace if he does believe it. Therefore he will search
heaven and earth in support of somewhat to sustain his
unbelief,and so to give rest to an unquiet conscience.
But human unbelief will not make the faith of God of
none effect. God will not cease to exist, to gratify
man's desire that there should he no God. And the
day of account will not be set aside, because men are
unwilling to answer to Him who gave them their lives,
for the manner in which they shall have spent them.
There is a way of relief from the dread of the judgment,
and from all evil results of the day of trial. God has
set forth his own Son as a ransom for all sinners, and
as a propitiation for all the sins of the whole world.
The blood shed on Calvary cancels all the guilt of every
:
penitent believer ; and

a life spent in doing good upon
from our Judge in the great day
this earth will secure
of reckoning these thrilling words of commendation
" Well done, thou good and faithful servant; thou hast
been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler
over many things enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
;
THE END.
w^

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^'^:y-^^fW^ '^^.it^': -j:;; ."r^ ^^ ^^v '?

THE HARMONY OF THE SCRIPTURAL

REV. N. COLLIN HUGHES, D.D.

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR

REV. N". COLLIN HUGHES,

All Rights Reserved.

CusHiNG & Co., Printers, Boston.

Oppositions of science ; in Scripture ; the last century

evidences. Method of harmonizing ajDparent discrepan-

of the past. But not the antiquity of the human race.

removal of surface from internal fires tropical produc- ;

tions in Arctic regions oldest rocks, igneous or metamor-

phic. Analogical argument from state of heavenly bodies.

periods. Correspondence of the six days of Scripture to

five circumstances noted: 1. Without form. 2. Void. 8.

Immersion of the earth in water. Consistency with the

Third verse. Incoming of light. Its source, the sun.

Gradual penetration of the vaporous envelope. Fourth

mony with natural science, and geology in particular.

LECTURE IIL Part L

Review of the Second Lecture. Second day. Con-

Third Day Gen. I. 9-13 67

civ. Lands now lifted from the waters. Their perma-

herbs ; fruit trees. Peculiarities of the seed of the herb

LECTURE IV. Part L

Fifth Day Gen. I. 20-23 97

Preliminary remarks. Scriptural record. Creatures

Sixth Day Gen. I. 24-27 113

Creatures brought forth by the land. Two divisions.

The Antiquity of Man 126

Question. Does geology prove that man has been

A MONG the many devices with which, in all ages,

St. Paul had occasion to warn Timothy against them.

many of our seminaries of learning, and in producing

week, a work which occupied a long series of ages.

natural science. But that, on the contrary, the harmony

dent, and can only be accounted for on the ground that

question, I would call your attention to the fact that

gion are innumerable and incontrovertible. The Bible

that was to come, concerning races of people, nations,

them reaching to our own time. These prophecies

walls and bulwarks more impregnable than the fort-

4 GENESIS AND GEOLOGY.

man, however intelligent and however sincere. But

ocean. At times there have been gradual oscillations

sometimes folding them, and occasionally melting them

therefore, according to Scripture, the earth is not an-

duration of those days bears a likeness to the eternity

natural days bear to the three score years and ten of

there used, we shall find the result of our investigation

number (not to speak of its plural, days'), occurs some

says, "All the day long have I been plagued, and

chastened every morning." His meaning evidently is

Cometh," that is, because his death drew nigh in which

have referred to the day of her visitation by himself;

all the inhabitants of the land tremble ; for the day of

10 GENESIS AND GEOLOGY.

and in every instance it means the period during which

inhabitants, referred to six periods of twenty-four hours.

in the development of minute and simple an object

of any imaginable length. And hence the antiquity of

i. of the primeval condition of the world, and of the suc-

cessive steps b}^ which it was fitted up and peopled with